She
by Inkpot
Summary: ‘…The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, the devil will come…’ (She comes and makes Draco her ‘china doll’.)
1. Bind

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. All the new characters and situations are mine, my own. 

Warning: fic contains sexual situations, profanity and things not suitable for children under the age of thirteen.     __

This fic is about Draco Malfoy – Harry Potter – and a vision in purple that comes to make him hers. It will not be too long of a fic, probably five chapters in all. Read, give it a chance, and enjoy. Don't forget to leave me a review for my hard efforts. 

_She_

Part one:

The first time I saw her, I was but fourteen. I was with my father, my mother not too far away. She seemed too tall and too beautiful, too pale, too bright, too freckly. She wore a most unusual outfit, a purple dress that showed off her pale shoulders and arms. The bodice was tight but then the dress flared out and hovered around her. She wore purple boots with it; they reached her knees and met the hem of the dress. Her hair was tied up high and I remember thinking that I wanted to untie it so it could reach her bottom – where I thought it would reach. 

At the age of fourteen, I was short for my age, I was pale and blond. My eyes were grey and I was another Lucius in the making. My mother would fuss over me, brush my hair, take me to the tailors, buy me expensive trinkets and shoes from Italy. Take me to lunch in France. She'd oo, ah and aw at me. Her friends would call me a 'darling,' a 'sweetheart'; they'd say that I'd catch women like flies to honey in another few years. They'd get their children to play with me, to see me, to sit with me, to talk with me. To be like me. 

She came to us at the Quidditch World Cup. We were up in the box and she'd come when the game was over. In her purple dress and purple shoes. Her hair was alight and her eyes were deeply stagnant then. She came into the box and curtsied to my mother and father. 

From the way my father's eyes skimmed over her, I knew he was considering her for his bed even as my mother stood beside him. From the way that my mother nodded towards her with a small smile, the way that Narcissa commented on the woman's unusual dress, I knew that my mother instantly despised the girl that baffled her. To my mother's comments, the woman only smiled and inclined her head. Eyes stagnant still, and cold. But she was beautiful and even at my age I knew that men wanted her for their bed and women wanted her dead. 

She'd stood before me and took my hand with two of her fingers.

'Malfoy,' she stated, 'what Malfoy?'

'Draco,' I said. I felt like it important to make her remember that, I felt it important that she remember me. She'd smiled in that mysterious, electrifying way of hers. It wasn't a smile, nothing happy like the girls at school; it wasn't a smirk like the one my father had taught me. It was a considering. No consideration of feelings but that of persons. She considered me then, now I know, considered what I could mean to her, what I could do for her, how she could use me. 

She touched my hair and looked up at my father. 

'A china doll, just like a china doll,' she said to my mother, who nodded. 

She looked back down at me and this time her smile was fire in me. It was amused and wicked; her eyes were no longer dead swamps of green moss but flickering emeralds. The change was unnerving, and part of me felt like snatching my hand and backing away; the other part wanted to go with her where she would take me. And that I did. She asked my father if he'd let her introduce me to her friends and he nodded. I was sure then that Lucius wished her for his bed, for the way he'd skimmed the bare skin of her shoulders, that pretty stiff neck and the top of those freckled breasts made me want her too. 

I was but fourteen, and for the first time, I discovered this new feeling. This new part of me that wanted. Not just to touch and skim but to have. To own. To own her. 

She took my hand like an older sister and walked out of the top box. She walked down the stairs and across the now empty Quidditch field, then she stopped. She turned to me and kneeled down. I was now looking down at her, down her dress, getting a better look at her shoulders. The shoulders that I so wanted to get a hold of and caress. 

'Draco, that's it,' she said, and I'd thought she was about to scold me, but I couldn't think of what I'd done wrong. 'We're friends now.' 

She got up and quickly walked away with me. I was running as she pulled me by the hand and when we reached the other side of the stadium, her friends were there. They were in a small room, one reserved for water boys and extra chairs. They were sitting, as if they were waiting. They were talking and laughing, but I felt their waiting. I did not know what they waited for and till this day I am not sure, but for that second I felt like they waited for me and her. 

When she came in, they greeted her like old friends. The women kissed her cheeks and the men attempted to fondle her but she pushed them away with flirtatious hands and winking eyes. All her friends were dressed like her, the women in puffy revealing dresses, fancy hair, dusty make up and glittering precious stones. The men wore expensive suites, shiny shoes, thick capes and with their hair long and shiny. 

When the room had calmed down, she stood behind me and they all watched us. She dropped to her knees next to me and ran her hands on my arms, my shoulders, my chest and finally cupped my chin. Her hands were tiny and slight but strong. She came close enough to kiss my cheek and ran her lips over the invisible barrier around me that seemed to be keeping her away. The people in the room – her friends – watched with amused and wicked eyes – just like hers. The women licked their lips and undressed me with their eager eyes, the men smirked and leaned forward. 

'This is Draco Malfoy. My new china doll,' she whispered to me. Not to the room, to me. I wanted her to whisper to me, I felt lucky to hear her whispers. I knew nothing of this woman, not her name, not even her age, all I knew was the way she touched me. The firm and pleasing way her hands ran up my arms and her breath lingered on my skin. The way her pouted lips nearly blessed me. 

They applauded her and she chuckled. It wasn't a happy one, but a triumphant one. The women came and knelt by me, touched my face, oohed and ahed, touched my hair and gasped. They felt my clothes, my chest through them and told her what a prize I will be for her.  She smiled that cold smile of hers. 

She got up and took my hand. We walked back across the field to the box where we stopped outside. She leaned down again and placed her hands on my shoulders. For the first time I noticed them, they where very pale, just like the rest of her. They were elegant and delicate. Like pianist's hands, like one who drew with paint on canvases, or like one who fenced and killed ruthlessly. She rubbed my shoulders and it soothed me. I wanted her to; I wanted her at the age of fourteen. I did not know that my feelings for this older woman were wrong. Nor did I know that it was a start of an obsession. 

'Draco, I'm your friend.' She said this very slowly as if I were five, and it infuriated me, but that was only what I thought. I thought I was angry but I wasn't, I was too caught up in her face to be anything. I was caught up in her flawless skin, the way it was pale but promised soft caresses, the way it was tight and spoke of expensive beauty. Her eyes were green and they reminded me of grass when it rained and the droplets hang on to every strand until the wind blew and the droplets splattered. Her eyes were trusting, I don't now how at the age of fourteen I found trust in them, but I did. Her lips were pouted and shiny with the pale creamish lipstick that she wore. She looked like a virgin all together. Untouched. I thought of her as being ceramic, no, porcelain. Yes, porcelain. She was porcelain and I was china. We were together and fragile. 

'I'll come for you at Hogwarts, I'll come at night and spend time with you. I'll be your friend. Don't tell anyone of my coming or I won't come. Do you understand me, petal?'  

I nodded and she gave me another of her smiles. The ones that spoke of tales of glorious battles. The ones that were triumphant. She gave it to me. Gave me it. Gave _me_ it. She gave me her smile and I wanted it to be mine alone. I didn't want anybody to see it but me, I didn't want her to give it to anybody else. At fourteen, I did not know that I was pining for her, for her skin against mine, for the soft moistness of the place where I wished to slide. She held my shoulders firmly and brought my body to hers, kissed my cheeks with a soft brush for her lips and then released me. 

You must understand, at the age of fourteen I was knowledgeable in many areas but not that of women. I was used to my mother's friends, those rich snobs but not someone like this woman. I had never been given attention like this, I had been touched and gasped over but not like this. I don't know how her treatment of me differed from other women, but it was different and I was too… I didn't feel in my territory, you could say, to be in control and demand to know what she was about. 

She got up and, taking my hand like a child, she walked with me back into the box where Lucius waited for us. He rose when he saw us and a smug smirk spread over his face. 

'They loved him,' she said and let go of my hand as I took my place next to him. 

'Will we be seeing you again?' 

'Perhaps.'

He took her hand, and kissed it. His eyes spoke volumes that I did not hear at fourteen, but she, at twenty-two, smirked. 'Perhaps,' she said again and I knew my father would bed her when he got the chance. I didn't want him to; I wanted her to remain untouched. At the age of fourteen I couldn't explain it, but I knew that I wanted her to remain untouched for me. Me. 

She walked away. 

My father hurried me along and I hated him for thinking of her that way. For thinking of her in any way. 

*

At night, in my bed, I dream of her. She comes to me like she promised. I see her not only in my dreams but at night, by the lake. 

She sits with me and asks me questions. She listens to me as I answer about school, my friends, the things I like and dislike, my hobbies, my childhood, if I liked any girls. When I told her how I hated Harry Potter, she told me to be patient. When I told her how his friends annoyed me and I wanted to murder them, she told me to think rationally. She let me ask her questions too. 

She said she was twenty-two. She was very rich. Her family was originally from Ireland. She'd moved out of home when she was seventeen. Her name was Annabel. 

My Annabel. 

It never occurred to me to ask her what she wanted. Why she came to me, why she told me we were friends, what that meant. I was only mesmerized by her beauty, by her bloodied hair, by her soft pale skin, by her sharp collarbones, her pointy nose like a pixie's, her emerald eyes and that aura of delicacy and fragility that she carried.  

I felt like she was my secret. Mine. I wasn't to let anybody near her. She was mine alone and often in class or in the Great Hall, a smile would curve my lips. She was mine and nobody else knew about her but me. I was above everybody else because I had something they didn't, couldn't have, weren't even able to dream up in the wildest of their dreams. 

I felt smug. 

At the end of my fifth year, after the Department of Mysteries incident, she came to me. I was angry, I loved my father, I respected him, I looked up to him and I wanted to be like him. It killed me to know that a mere fifteen year old boy and an old wizard could put away my father. I loved him and I wanted vengeance. 

Much, much later, many years later, when I sit down to write this, I think over it. Think over this moment. I realise that I hadn't been angry because my father had been sent to prison but because I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be like a man who was fool enough to be caught and sent to prison. 

When she came to me, she was dressed in peach. It suited her skin, her porcelain skin, enhanced by the light shade of the material. It was a puffy dress, her arms and shoulders showing like they always were. Everything she wore, her pale arms and shoulders were showing. Her dress puffed out and she wore shoes like a ballerina. Her hair was tied up high and I wanted to wrap my hands around her thin neck. I wanted to be that ruby necklace that hugged her throat. 

She led me to the Quidditch field, holding my hand like she always did. When we reached the middle of it, she stopped and looked down at me. Her smile was talking to me. I told you so, I knew this would happen. I'm always right. For the first time, she angered me. I pushed her away when she tried to lay a hand on my cheek. She wasn't hurt by it; she only smiled like one would at a small feline doing a trick it hadn't done before. I stopped and breathed deeply, looking up at the dark sky that was adorned with glowing crystals. 

'You won't find your answers there. Mortals always look up at the sky and beg for answers but they never find them. You think God will answer your pleas but he won't. The sky won't give you vengeance. Those sparkles are just there, they have no abilities, they can't help you. Only you could give you vengeance. And I, I could give you vengeance.' She spoke from behind me; her breath was on my neck like always. I turned to her then, and she put both of her hands on my shoulders. 

'You've grown,' she said. 'You're almost as tall as me now.' And I was, I reached her shoulders. Her smooth shoulders. It frustrated me how she spoke to me like I was just a child. Just a little boy who didn't understand. She saw that in my eyes and took a step closer. 'You'll be a man tomorrow, you'll be all grown up.' 

'Will you still come to me?' I felt it important to know. She'd never told me anything about growing up and she was my guardian, I had to have her approval on everything. If she would leave me because I had become a man then I won't become one. I'll stay a child forever. 

'You'll always be my china doll.' She touched my hair briefly and then turned and walked away and sat down on the grass. I walked to her and she took me in her lap. She let me rest my head on her bosom, I sat in the V of her legs and she played with my hair. She smelled of honeysuckle. I still remember now. 

We sat like this for a long time, I imagined we looked like lovers. She glowed in her peach coloured dress and porcelain skin. Her hair was an amazing contrast, the colour of blood. 

As I thought of her, I found my hand on her knee as I pushed up her dress. I sat up a little, my arm supporting me on her side. She said nothing, she was staring at the sky as if _she _now searched for answers. I brought my lips to her knee and kissed it there. Her skin was just like I'd imagined, soft and scented. I kissed a little higher and than higher than that. I rubbed her thigh with my hand and I felt a tremor go through me. She was what I'd been waiting for. Beauty, grace…infidelity. 

I was fifteen but I felt like I knew what to do. I nipped and sucked on her skin, I kissed and caressed it with my hands. Her thigh fascinated me; pale, soft, round and developed. 

She wasn't like the girls in my year, she was more, more woman. And a whole lot of woman she was. I remember thinking, if I'm this excited with her thigh, imagine what I could do with the rest of her. Something plunged through me and my loins tightened. I knew then that it wasn't just lust, I wasn't just wanting to touch her because she was older than me or more beautiful then any other woman. I didn't just want to undress her because I was fifteen and wanted to explore the gentler sex. 

I found that I'd slowly fallen in love with her. 

I loved her like I still do today. 

I pushed her dress further until her thigh started to widen to meet her hips under her skirts. I couldn't see anymore, but I could imagine it and this sent a need to my hands. 

She felt it; she felt my need as I caressed her thigh and tasted her skin. She looked at me and smiled, just another of her cold smiles. She put a hand at the nape of my neck and with her fingers played with the ends of my hair. She brought her head forward and I thought she was going to kiss me but she didn't. She placed a soft kiss on my nose and smiled. 

'The sun is rising, I must go. Do not do anything that you'll regret, there will come a time when I will allow you your vengeance.'  With this, she got up and walked away. I watched her until she was but a speck in the distance. 


	2. Me

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. All the new characters and situations are mine, my own. 

Warning: fic contains sexual situations, profanity and things not suitable for children under the age of thirteen. 

One of your reviews would do me great honour. 

_She_

Part two:

When I went to the manor at the end of term my mother was nowhere in sight. She would have normally found me at the platform with my father, but a house elf had been there instead. 

I found her in one of the high towers, sitting at the window and staring out at the mountains. I knocked on the door and waited until she told me to come forth. Her face stained with tears, her eyes were puffy and bloodshot. Her hair undone, around her shoulders, un-brushed and wild. 

'Mother,' I walked forward and stood at her feet. She turned to me and she was like I had never seen her before. Narcissa had never been 'unbrushed' or 'wild'. She had always calm and composed. She turned to me and gripped my shoulders. My mother never 'gripped' anything. She always held, or picked up, never gripped. She shook me and when I looked into her eyes; her pupils were dilated almost as big as her irises.

'They've taken your father. We must get him out Draco, we must save him. He'll die in there, we must save him. You must help me Draco, I can not do it alone.' She shook me so hard my head started to ache. She is mad, was all I could think, she'd lost her mind. 'Do you understand Draco, you must get him out!' 

'Mother, calm yourself, it would not do for you to run wild into Azkaban and call for him. You must plan calmly. Your tactics must be-'

'NO! I can not wait to plan, he'll die. Die!' She shook me so much that I was forced to shove her away roughly. She didn't seem to feel it, she just fell back and then stood right back up.  She looked around the tower room dreamily and shook her head. Slowly first, and then she went faster and harder until her hair was like a fan around her head. She unnerved me.    

She stopped suddenly and a single tear ran down her left cheek. 'Lucius will die…' she whispered.

She blinked gradually and then turned back to the tower window. I stood far from her, I don't remember when I'd taken those steps back. She'd lost her mind and I did not try to stop it. Something in me told me not to help her, not to help my father, to just leave. I didn't, I just stood in the tower room watching her as she gazed at the mountains like a woman who'd lost a world. 

But perhaps that _was _my way of leaving. I did not literally walk out the door, jump on a bus and never turn back. I just didn't walk forward to her or to my father.  

Why was she like this? Did she lose her mind because of the love that she had for my father, or had she lost her mind because the perfect portrait of the perfect family that she had drawn up for the world to see, came apart. Was she really going mad for losing my father, or losing the envy of those around her?

Not too much later, a house elf appeared and tugged at her dress. She looked down and looked away, as if she'd not seen it. It spoke to her, told her she must rest, that she must go to her room, eat and sleep. A butler came up the stairs and told her the same. Soon, they had her in her room and I stood by her bed as she ate like a child, dropping food on her linen nightgown, liquid trickling down her chin. I had never seen my mother so helpless and it seemed that a part of what I'd believed in was falling away. In my childhood I believed that my mother was a pillar, one standing proud and strong as if challenging the sands of time and God himself. 

But it wasn't that, any longer. My mother wasn't, my childhood was becoming a no longer. Slowly, it was becoming a was instead of an is. 

One of the pillars had toppled.

_My childhood was evanescing. _

*

I did not see Annabel all of that summer. She did not come to me and I spent my days alone in the manor. I wandered once or twice to the village near us but nothing interested me there. Not even the Muggle girls that I used to enjoy teasing. Everything was grey, but not in the kind between white and black. Everything wasn't in between, on level ground. Everything was tasteless. Calm and boring. I had lost my father, my mother was slowly losing her mind and Annabel had lost interest in me. 

I tried to fish once but that didn't go as planned, I quickly lost interest. I took refugee in my father's study among his books. I read the words of Shakespeare, Eddings, Aristotle, Austen, the Bronte sisters, Homer, Dickens, Browning, Brock, Hardy and Percy Hemingway. I read books on the Dark Arts, wizard history, potions, astronomy, transfiguration and philosophy. 

_'…The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, the devil will come…'_

I read so much my eyes ached for days without end. It was the only thing left for me to do. 

To read and change. 

I changed so much that summer, as my mind grew and I learned more of the world, I let go of many things. Among of which were the abilities to care, to feel and to live. Oh, I lived all right, I breathed, dreamed and ate when I remembered, but I was a mere shadow. A shadow of boy that was and never will be again. What innocence I had maintained till the age of fifteen I had lost over the summer. I was now sixteen and already bored with my life, unfocused, disinterested and never again surprised or happy. 

One thing remained. 

Not the love for my father or the worry for my mother but my love for Annabel. I worried about her. I wondered why she'd not come to me, why she'd left me when I needed her most. I wondered if I should hate her for leaving me, but I couldn't bring myself to feel anything but obsessive love. It was nothing that I'd felt before, or even allowed myself to feel. I loved her deeply; I yearned for her and wished her with me all the time. But she didn't come and I knew not where she was so I was unable to seek her out. 

Even as the days passed, the memories of Annabel were embedding themselves into my mind. Everything I did, it somehow reflected a moment that I'd spent with her or something that she'd said. As the days passed, she was no longer a woman to me, she was a seraph. In my mind, she had turned into something unreachable as the stars but as 'soon to be obtained' as a puffy cloud for a child. Everyday before I fell asleep or in those odd moments when I zoomed out while reading, I believed that Annabel would soon come to me. Soon, meaning, this very minute.

My mind made her something angelic. Like a saint, the Virgin Mary or Gabrielle. Holy and not of the human race. Untouchable. Idolised by humankind – me – thought of as something majestic, bigger then ourselves. Too good for one of us to own. Like Buddha might have been a mere human at one time but now is thought of as a god. Annabel, once just a woman, but now my mind had made her a goddess fit for worship. 

I had never left room in my mind for God or holy beings, but now I found room in my mind for _her. _I never believed in a god of any form, but I believed in Annabel. I believed that she would come to me. 

In my father's study, among his many books, I found an old tattered book of assorted poems. One poem suited me so well, that I took it and wrote it on the walls of my father's study. I wrote it on the walls of the dining room, the library, the sun room, the many hallways, my bedroom, even the foyer. I memorised it in the process and till this day I still remember it. I write it sometimes still.

_I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.  
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make your dear voice come alive again?  
  
I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body. For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many days and years, I would surely become a shadow.  
  
O scales of feeling.  
  
I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up. I sleep on my feet prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and face of some passerby.  
  
I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow that moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life. _

*

The days passed and I looked after my mother, heard her rambling and I agreed when she said that my father would die if I did not plan with her to save him. I nodded; I'd done a lot of nodding that summer. I cared not for my father and what I did for my mother was out of duty, maybe guilt. I do not know. 

*

September 1st came and I was due back at school. I packed my things and kissed my mother goodbye for the last time. She held onto my sleeve and told me that my father would die. I nodded. She burst into tears and begged me not to leave her; she said that she needed someone and that she couldn't stand to be alone in the large manor. I whispered in her ear things that I did not believe. I soothed her and kissed her again, she lay down among the sheets and pillows and I sat stroking her hair until she'd fallen asleep. 

When I arrived at the platform everybody was there, everybody was always there. I saw Harry Potter with the Weasleys as their plump mother kissed them goodbye and their father clapped them on the back. The Weasley girl had grown and blossomed, I realised. Ronald had grown an inch or two and Hermione Granger had filled out a little and her blouse seemed tighter around her breasts. All these things I noticed out of need to keep track of everything around me, so I don't wake one day and find myself in a whole new world that frightened me. 

When they caught my eye I did not bother to sneer or call them names; they seemed baffled and uneasy about this. I got on the train and put my trunk in a compartment. I did not sit with Goyle and Crabbe, did not try to put my hands under Pansy's clothes or get a tumble with Blaise. I sat alone and let my thoughts wonder as I watched the scenery go by in a blur. 

Halfway through the trip, out of boredom, I decided to take a walk. I walked by closed doors and people laughing and joking. When I neared one of the carriage doors, it opened and the trio stepped out. Ronald's eyes narrowed at me and he snarled something or other. I did not react; I just waited – not politely, silently – for them to give me way. Harry frowned and told them to let me pass, Hermione watched me with big eyes as if I were a walking textbook that she needed to read before it ran off. I put my hands in my pockets and continued my passing. I could feel their curious, inquisitive eyes on my back, but I ignored them. 

I got back to school and attended classes, finished assignments, answered questions and said I was fine when Snape asked me how I was. I did this out of duty to myself, for I knew, my old self would not have liked it if I'd failed classes and took pity from prying eyes. I did not socialise with any of the people that I used to socialise with before. I did not even smile when an old acquittance passed me by, nor did I smirk, sneer or jeer at the Gryffindors. Not even Harry Potter, the one who'd sentenced my father to death. I did no longer feel that vengeance was necessary, nothing was anymore. 

I pushed through the days, I felt exhausted even though I slept like a sack and ate all my meals. Everything was dense, even the air around me. The oxygen that I was forced to breath stunk of dead and waste. The girls that tried to flirt with me were all ugly and too obvious. I yearned for my Annabel. 

When the teachers got together and called me to the Headmaster's office for a 'counselling session', I went. Snape, McGonagall and Dumbledore were there. I nodded and said I was fine. I answered in monosyllables and only spoke when I was spoken to. My set and bored face expression did not waver, not because I wished to come off as the tortured youth, but because that was what I was feeling. Bored. Snape laid a hand on my shoulder and told me it would get better, I did not hate him for making a grave mistake, I just nodded. 

I missed my Annabel and none of their words could make it different. 

When the papers read that my father had been broken out of Azkaban by Death Eaters, I set the paper aside. I continued to do what I had to do out of duty. I knew I couldn't be with her but I did what I had to do. Through all the grey, I had the sense to recognise that I didn't - couldn't - know how to let my Annabel go. 

When everybody waited for my reaction to the news, I did not give one, I just stared and nodded. My face was set and I was bored. When Snape asked me how I was, I said fine. It wasn't depression, it was boredom and longing for my Annabel. 

When someone is given a star, they live at the level of this star, guided by the light of this star but then the star is taken away… someone isn't content with the light of a torch any more. They need the star again.

My mother was well again, I was told by Pansy who caught me in a hallway and told me the 'good news'. I'd nodded to that and gave no reaction, I saw the disappointment on her face but did not care. 

My life was a duty. Everything was a duty; even breathing was now a duty.

*

It was nearing Easter – not that Easter meant anything now, for I no longer even thought about the possibility of there being a God, saints or angels – when Annabel sent me a letter. 

I was in Potions when it came. The owl flew in through the doorway, dropped the letter, and flew away. I felt everybody's eyes on me, even Snape's. The letter was in an envelope and the envelope was coloured in peach. There was a seal of an hourglass and fangs. I ripped it open, leaving my potion to boil when I was meant to turn the fire off when it simmered. The paper inside was the same colour, it said nothing. But I knew, for it smelt like honeysuckle. Those staring over my shoulder saw nothing and the word quickly spread around the class. I'd received a blank letter. I thought about her using invisible ink, but thought against it. 

That night, at twelve, I left my dormitory and walked down to the lake. The night was calm and a bit chilly.  I waited and waited until she came. She was dressed in black. Her shoulders and arms were showing, her blood coloured hair was tide back, her dress was puffed from waist down and hovered around her, she wore fancy shoes and elegant sapphire rocks on her ears and around her throat. 

She hadn't changed. 

I wished to wrap my hands around that neck. I wanted to bite her lips and shake her like mad. I wanted to yell in her face and push her to the ground. I wanted to pull that long soft hair of hers and make her hurt. I was so angry at her, I was furious with her. I wanted to hit her and kill her but I didn't. 

I stared at her with indifference. My face was calm and bored, just like it had been without her. My face had been calm and bored for so long that it was the way my face relaxed now, the way my muscles grew. She touched my cheek and then cupped my chin. I let her, I did not care. I did not show her how the blood burned through my veins or how I lost all control over my knees going down to my feet so I could not turn from her. She didn't know I wished to draw her to me and bury my head in her hair or kiss that stiff neck of hers. How at the same time I wanted to break it. 

'My china doll, you've grown so much.' She smiled that cold smile of hers and came closer to peck me on the cheek but I held her wrist and pushed her away. I stared at her for a long time and her beauty made me feel so little and stupid it terrified me. My chest ached and I wished to put my hand to it and rub to get the breath moving in it. I did the hardest thing that I had done all my life; I turned from her and started back up to the castle. Her voice was barely audible over the soft breeze but it reached my ears and stopped me dead in my tracks.

'You walk away from me, petal?' I spun around and I could contain my temper no longer. I took long strides back to her, grabbed both of her wrists and twisted her arms behind her back. I held her wrists so tightly; she had no choice but to stiffen up against me. Every part of Annabel was up against me, her breasts, her thighs, her stomach, her hips, waist and her shoulders were against my chest. I had grown, I was now taller then she. A head taller.    

As I looked into her eyes, they were sad and I did not allow her sadness to cut me like a blade, I concentrated on my anger. Something occurred to me then. My Annabel was selfish, she saw nothing but her reflection, she cared for no one but herself. She did not care for me, did not love me, did not want me. She cared only for what I could do for her. 

This should have made me give up, should have made me push her away and forget about her. To fall in love with Pansy or even the Weasley girl. But it was not so. 

Gods, saints and angels were not selfish, they did not use people, why did she? Her apathy made me more determined to make her care for me, love me and want me like I wanted her. 

My anger was still flaring, so I did something I had never done before; I shouted in her face and squeezed her wrists hard enough to stop the circulation to her hands. 

'I never walked away from you, you left me. Don't even accuse me of not caring for or loving you, I'm not selfish. You are. I want to hate you for leaving me, I want to kill you but I can't. I can't do anything that I want to do to you; I can't even make love with you like I want to. Don't ever, ever come to me again. I wish never to see your face or hear your voice or smell your perfume ever again. I want you gone from my life forever!' 

'You've changed,' she'd said in the smallest of voices. 'You aren't my old china doll anymore. You've changed.'

'I've changed because you left me to change. This is all your fault.' With this, I let go of her wrists and stepped back. With another look over her, I turned and walked back to the castle. She did not call me nor did I wish for her to, I wished to have her go, I wished to be alone. I had not felt this much since last year, over six months ago, this much emotion at one time exhausted me. I wanted sleep. I wanted rest. I wanted eternal rest. 

*

The next two weeks passed unsteadily. I would keep calm and bored and then I'd lash out at someone. I felt so shaky, literally. I'd pick up a cup at breakfast and before it reached my mouth, it would be all over the table. I'd pick up a spoon and my hand would rattle so much that I would draw the attention of those around me. I tried picking up my quill in potions and I dropped it three times. The third time, Snape was passing around and he picked it and handed it to me. He'd asked if I was all right, I'd nodded and said I was fine.

I was useless. I couldn't feed myself, write, pick up my school bag, it took me forever to dress myself and using the toilet was a hazard. I wasn't just failing physically, mentally, I was breaking down too. When I look back on it now, I decide that it was because I'd kept it all in for six months and in a matter of a few minutes it had all come rushing back like an avalanche. I felt hopeless, like an old man who lost the ability to walk and looked back on his young days and was able to pinpoint the exact moment when he'd become a useless slob of flesh. 

I tried to hide it. When I dropped my quill for the sixth time, I acted like I hadn't. When I spilt my pumpkin juice all over myself and the table I'd act like it was an accident that happened once in ten years. I'd just pick myself up with an annoyed expression and head back to my dormitory to change. 

I started forgetting.

I'd be walking to my next class and then I'd completely forget where I was going. I'd pause in the middle of the hallway and zoom out. I never remembered what happened during those episodes. I still don't now. All I remember was the fear and confusion that I felt afterwards. I hated being afraid and for that I was angry. From my natural need to be in control and understand everything around me, confusion had me devastated. 

I felt like I was slipping away, evaporating, fading, melting like a grain of salt in a cup of water and all I could do was watch. At the age of sixteen and a half, I was losing my mind and body like an old man at eighty five. What I did not know then was that everybody knew. Everybody knew that Draco Malfoy was ailing, losing his mind. I did not see the pity in their eyes or the way they moved out of my way in the corridors, as if afraid of me or not wanting to touch me least I broke. 

I felt frustrated, I felt like I was being locked in a small room with no windows and not aloud out. Everything was a whirlpool of emotions and colours that I really did begin to lose my mind. The losing of my wits wasn't just an illusion by the pressures on me, it was an actual fact. My mind _was _fraying. 

In any case, if they ever looked at me with doubt, I chased their doubt away one day when I went down to dinner. 

I had been late; the only seat left at the Slytherin table was at the far end next to the head table. I had my book bag against my chest, like a child, because I had not been able to sling it over my shoulder. Half way down the table I stopped and half turned to go back. I do not remember what happened next. I had another episode where I was totally blank. I was told later that I'd paused and looked at everything around me like I'd never seen it before. I turned in a circle, not knowing what to do or where to go. Snape had seen me from the head table and out of compassion he'd come over to me. Snape was showing me compassion. He stood a few meters away and called me. I didn't turn but jumped and dropped my book bag with all its contents on the ground. They all rolled out of the bag and the inkwell burst over my things. I'd stood silently and watched as the ink ran like a river of blood over the white parchment. 

Snape used his wand to clean it and picked up my bag. He was leading me out of the hall as everybody whispered and pointed at me. Even the trio were curiously concerned. By the time I was outside, I'd come back. My mind had come back from the deep shadows that it was in, to my body. I remember looking up at Snape and then back inside the hall. 

Taking my bag from him, I walked away. He'd asked me what's wrong and then I'd said I was fine.   

The next day in potions, it all came to a final show down. I was at my peek, all frustration at my inability, anger, loss, missing Annabel, emotionally and physically exhausted and for the first time, I'd seen the pity in their eyes and it killed me. I had had enough; this was the official mental breakdown. 

Snape was passing around a potion for us to smell and when it got to me, I shook so bad that it fell out of my grasp and shattered when it hit the ground. I blacked out for seconds. I don't remember what happened then but when I came back I was staring at the brown velvetiness of the liquid on the stone surface.

Pansy had her hand on my shoulder and she was asking me if I was all right. I was terrified, confused and angry. I wanted to burst or ran to the edge of a cliff and swear and curse the life out of me. Instead I shoved Pansy off her seat, and yelled at her things that I don't even remember. Things that made her cry and ran out of the classroom. I lunged out of my seat and then staggered and fell to my knees. 

I saw Snape rushing towards me, I saw Harry Potter from the next seat, standing and frowning down at me in confusion. Like I was a bomb about to blow or a wild animal about to attack. I heard Snape telling someone to get the nurse. I was on all fours, gagging. My body needed to throw up but there was nothing in my stomach as I hadn't eaten for the last three days because I had no been able to hold a spoon or lift a cup.  

I fell to the side and, to my complete disgrace, burst into tears. 

Today, I could still hear my sobs echoing off the uncarpeted dungeon floor. I rolled into the smallest ball humanly possible and cried as I covered my head with my hands and shook like a mad bull. 

Hands, Snape's hands, were on my shoulders. There were a lot of noises and over all that I could hear my own sobs.  I don't remember exactly what I felt then, because I felt everything. It was so over whelming that my body decided to stop and let it all out at the once. 

Suddenly, all sound stopped. 

There was complete and utter mute. I couldn't even hear a pin dropping. Then I heard footsteps. I remember footsteps. Then I felt small hands on my back, pulling my hands away from my head. I thought it was the nurse but when I smelt honeysuckle, I knew it was my Annabel. She'd come to me, remembered me. I could feel her but inches away. 

'Don't break, my china doll,' she said to me. I knew everybody else heard her too, but it didn't matter because Annabel spoke to me. I was her china doll, nobody else. Just me. 

Gently, she pulled my hands away from my head, put her own on my shoulders and brought me sitting. I saw her then. She was wearing an enormous robe and gloves. The cape covered every inch of her and had to it attached a hood that covered half of her face as well. Only when she took it off and threw it over my shoulders did I realise that I had nearly frozen to death. 

She now wore a white dress. As always, her shoulders and arms were showing. The dress hovered around her from waist down and with it she wore white boots that met the hem of her dress at the knees. Her hair was up and around her neck she wore the most expensive looking interact necklace of rubies and pearl. It was huge, the lowest ruby shaped like a tear. From her ears dropped rubies as well, encrusted with creamy pearl. Her lips were the most vivid colour of red I had ever seen in my whole entire life. Her eyes wore adorned with shine. 

She was my visions of perfection. Mine. All mine. My love was back and she held me in her arms, to her bosom as I shook and cried. I do not know how she knew I had needed her more then ever I had before at this moment. I did not know how she knew exactly what to do to bring me back to sanity but I didn't care. All I cared about was her smell, the softness of her skin, her beautiful clothes, her gentle hands and long hair. All I cared about was my Annabel. 

After a while, I stopped crying and she wiped at my tears with her white material gloves that were midway on her upper arms. She kissed my cheek and helped me to my feet, taking the robe from around my shoulders and wrapping it around her. It seemed necessary to cover every part of her. She even pulled out a white mask from her pocket and put it on under the hood. She took my hand and without another word to anyone she led me away. 

Only when Snape came out behind us did she stop. 

'Annabel,' it did not occur to me to ask how he knew her name. 'You can not take him.'

'I do as I please, Severus.' 

'They'll come looking for him; they won't leave him for you.'

'Let them come! I won't leave him. I won't. He's my china doll. I made him and I won't leave him.' 

She tugged at my hand and I quickly followed as she left the dungeons. The end of the period signalled and everybody came spilling out of the classrooms. That did not stop her; she walked through them and they seemed to be parting for her. Her walk was confident and sure. I ran to keep up with her long strides. She led me out of the castle and quickly across the ground to a carriage – it wasn't a school carriage – with a man sitting with the ruins and two horses in the lead. As soon as she approached, the man jumped and opened the door for her. She didn't even glance his way as she sat and pulled me after her. Once inside she shut the door and I saw darkness. The carriage from the inside was pitch black with the curtains thick and no crack here or there. 

She murmured a spell and lit four candles on the side walls. She threw off the cape and the mask. Her face expression was one that I'd never seen before. Her eyes were wide, her mouth wider and her nose crinkled. She looked giddy. Smug. Cheeky. Like a little girl who'd stolen a slice of cake and gotten away with it. When I furrowed my brow, she burst out laughing. Her laughter was real, not triumphant like the one I'd heard when she first announced that I was to be her china doll. Or all the other ones that she seemed to sound only because the moment called for it. 

She stomped her feet really quickly on the floor in excitement and clapped her hands twice. 'This is so exciting, wouldn't you say, china doll?' Her eyes were lit with fire and her cheeks were rosy. I'd never seen her like this and I loved it. 

'What's exciting?' 

'This.' She got up from her couch on one side of the carriage and sat next to me on my side. 'I got you away, I saved you.' 

'I didn't need you to save me.' My tone hardened and my eyes turned to ice. She looked a little put out and started arranging her dress around her. She puffed it up and I imagined if I looked down at her she'd look like a white flower, with a red bud, in full bloom. 

I'd never seen her like this; she never arranged her dress around her because her dress always seemed to arrange itself. It was never unarranged from the first place. Her cheeks were never flushed because she was always calm and stiff. She never laughed, stomped her feet or clapped her hands in excitement because she was simply never excited. She either smirked or smiled coldly. This side of her made me feel like I was at a circus and seeing the lioness that was high on ecstasy, for the first time. I loved this in her. Just like I loved everything else in her. 

'Oh, come now, petal, don't be a spoilsport. I won't tell you that you did absolutely need me to save you because you were having a mental breakdown which I did save you from if you won't try to deny it.' She sat rocking her torso, a lock of hair twisted around her index finger and glitter in her eyes. She was like a little girl showing off her new dress. 

She'd always seemed too old and wise to me, not old physically, but mentally, and now she was acting like a giddy eleven-year-old with a stolen slice of cake. I moved to the opposite couch and folded my arms, staring at the window even though it was covered. It didn't occur to me to ask her why we didn't pull back the drapes instead of lighting the candles. I think I appreciated the warmth too much. 

'What's wrong with you?' I asked. 

She shrugged her shoulders and moved to sit next to me. 'Nothing, I'm just happy to see you, Draco.' She so rarely called me by my name that it sounded melodious from her lips. 

'Why did you leave me for so long, Annabel? Do you know what happened to me? I needed you but you decided that it was your time to forget me. Then you come waltzing back in and become upset when I don't want to see you. Do you have any idea what happened to me over the summer? How I needed you? My mother was going mad, my father was in Azkaban and I was alone. And then you show up after six months and you trigger something in me that shouldn't have been triggered.' I looked at the draped window even though I couldn't see through it. As long as I wasn't looking at her because I knew that my defences would fall. 

'I came to you but you didn't see me,' she said and sat back on her legs, the excitement beginning to fade away from her eyes.  

'Then what was the use?' 

'I saw you. I made sure you were all right.' 

'So much for that.'

There was a long silence; all that could be heard was the click clack of the horse hoofs on the cobbled streets.

She touched my shoulder and I turned towards her. 

'I did what was best for you. You needed time to grow up. With me around you, you would've stayed as fourteen as the day I met-'

'No I wouldn't have!'

'You never thought that if I wanted you to stay a child, you would stay a child to have me come to you? You did. I wanted you to grow up but I couldn't tell you without it being odd. Without you asking questions so I just stood back and watched from afar.' She paused and shrugged delicately. 'Fishing is not your thing, by the way. You should come with a 'don't try this at home' warning on the side of the box.' 

I couldn't help it; at this I cracked a smile. She laughed again and the excitement came back to her face. 

'Oh, Draco, you're going to have such fun! You'll meet my family and I'll take you with me to places. Oh, I can't wait to have you with me all the time. To show you to my friends and dress you and buy you shoes and … oh… such fun!' She squealed in anticipation and clapped her hands again. 

'I'm not a doll or a little girl so you could take me and buy me shoes and dress me up…' I said, eyeing her up and down in reapproach. She looked at me and frowned, as if this hadn't occurred to her before. After a moment she dismissed it with a wave of her hand – like a child would an irritating fly. 

'Never mind that. Oh… I need to get you clothes.' She opened the robe that I wore and inspected my school uniform. 'These won't do. Oh no, not at all.' She paused, considering, and then looked worried. 'I won't be able to take you shopping today; I'll need to get prepared for the ball… uh… I got it! Tobias is about your size I think. You've grown so much! You just need to fill out a little and you'll look like a grown man. You're handsome too; really handsome, just like Lucius. Soon you'll be seventeen. Aha…' 

All I could do was wear half a smile and narrow my eyes in curiosity. 'You'll like Tobias. Don't let him get to you; he just needs to see if your worthy and then he'll treat you like an equal. There's Sebastian, he's fine. Nice but swings both ways so keep a look out. Shawn doesn't speak much; you'll need to get him talking. I usually get him talking, but I've known him for years… Roxanna is… you'll find out soon enough… There's Benjamin, Chu-Ya, Egi, Mussa, Ailionora, Elva, Edith, Marcus – who's the boss - and Emma. That's just my family; there will be other people there as well. Other families from all over the world. It's going to be huge! You'll have such fun, Draco!' 

She paused for an easy smile. There was a knock on the door and the driver said that we'd arrived. Where did we arrive, I did not know. I just watched as she threw the robe back on and wore the mask. 

'Why do you wear those?' I asked. 

'So my skin doesn't burn, petal.' 

'Why would it burn?'

'I have a disease, that's why I'm so pale. I have a skin disease; I'm allergic to sunlight.' The driver opened the door and he held her hand as she stepped down elegantly. Without waiting for me to come down, or even get off the seat, she took my hand and started walking. I nearly tripped but she didn't seem to notice as she hurried on and told me to keep up. I decided that she was a woman who didn't take care of her possessions, china or not. 

A castle, something medieval. It was huge. Slightly bigger then the Hogwarts castle with grounds ten times as beautifully decorated with flowers, fountains, birds, bushes, trees, a few rabbits and what looked like peacocks.

When she neared the doors, they opened of their own accord and when we were in, they shut again. I couldn't see the ceiling when I looked up; it was so high I couldn't see it. I noticed that all the windows were draped just like the carriage had been. There were candles on the walls, giving out bright shining light. There were also portraits and paintings. The walls themselves were littered with intricate designs that dazzled and tired the eye. They were all black – the walls – and the designs were golden. The frames of the painting and portraits were gold and thick.  The ground was tiled black, it was shiny, I could see my reflection. 

We were in a foyer, there was a grand staircase leading to the second floor, and three hallways. One led to the right, another to the left and the last led straight on. We kept to the one in front of us and she walked hurriedly as she threw off her mask and her robe, dropping them on the floor. I glanced back and out of the shadows came a manservant who took them and disappeared just as fast. The designs on the walls followed through the bends and turns. There were portraits of people and drawings of settings, nature, streams and fruit bowls. Among those, were paintings of naked maidens being ravaged by older men. One of the paintings was a group of men, about six or eight, dressed in black and white. The woman who was frightened and crying, was naked and bleeding. 

There were many doors, all framed in gold. The walls were also adorned with lit candles. The building was ancient and it spoke of glory and mystery. 

We turned and passed so many doors that I soon lost track of where we were. One of the doors that we passed sat opened. I stopped and looked in. There was a woman, a naked one. There were two men, both dressed. One of them was kissing the woman with a hand between her legs and the other was trailing a yellow snake dotted in black, up her leg. I frowned, I had never seen anything like this, what were they doing?  Wouldn't that snake bite the woman? Wouldn't she die? 

Before I could linger on my thoughts, Annabel came back. She'd walked a bit and came back when she'd realised I wasn't with her. She took hold of my hand and tugged me along in that same hurried fashion of hers. 

'Don't watch Draco, you should never watch unless you are invited to. It's rude, you could offend people that way.'

'What were they doing to that woman?' 

'What? Haven't you ever met a person who got pleasure out of hurting another? Come now Draco, you weren't that sheltered. That was Roxanna by the way. What did I tell you about her? You should never get caught with her in an empty room with anything sharp, that's what. She gets…_kinky_.' 

We climbed a staircase and at the top waited another manservant. She passed him without any acknowledgment; she took the cup of red wine that he held out to for her though. She sipped at it as we hurried along, I'd never seen anybody enjoy wine the way that she did.

Finally, she stopped at large double doors and threw them opened. There was a small room with an Italian style couch and a plant under a painting on the opposite wall. Right along there was a wall in which was a smaller door – also gold. 

She opened it and stopped inside the room. It was a bedroom. With a huge canopy four poster, a walk in closet, a desk, a dresser and another door that, by no doubt, led to the bathroom. The colour scheme in the room was indigo. With indigo coloured drapes, bed sheets, cushions, chairs and carpet. I looked up at the ceiling and it looked as if it had been carved into the building. The room had been painted black while the walls were painted in the same shade as the bed sheets. In the middle of it hung a chandelier holding many lit candles. 

'This is your room, china doll.' She held out her hands like a shopkeeper showing off his new products. 'I'll bring you some of Tobias' clothes, you'll change and I'll take you to Marcus. You must have Marcus' blessing to stay.' She looked me over a few times and then clapped her hands. Two servants came in – both male. She spoke with one and then left the room. 

I was left to the servants, who led me to the door that we hadn't opened yet. It was a white tiled bathroom. It was pretty modern in such an ancient house. It was big with a bath in the middle, a sink and cabinet on one side and then there was another door on the other side. When they pushed me into it, I found that it was a small cubical for the toilet. I came back out and inspected the walls as I washed my hands. There were paintings and plants. Two paintings – one of a lake and another of a cottage and a girl that stood in front of it with a flower basket and a puppy.  

I was still washing my hands when they pulled me away from the sink and without ceremony, began undressing me. I was used to this, back at the manor there was much the same treatment. But I was usually asked before a man began to undo my buttons and unzip my pants.

I was standing naked with one of the servants throwing the clothes in a laundry shoot and the other filling up the giant bath. He added scents and skin moisturisers. The one who'd been putting the clothes away, pushed and prodded me until I climbed into it. One was soon rubbing shampoo into my hair and the other was looking over my nails. The one that seemed younger held a loofah and began scrubbing my back and shoulders. They washed my hair and it was in my eyes when Annabel came bursting through the doors. I remained perfectly still under the clear water when she stepped up to the tub and smiled at me.

'I've got your clothes,' she said. 'They'll help you into them and take in the hems if need be. I think they're the right size though…' She cocked her head to one side and studied my naked body, her eyes lingering on my thighs and groin. She smiled again and left the bathroom. Once outside, I heard her erupt into giggles. I caught sight of one of the servants and he seemed to be holding back laughter. 

'What?' I snapped when I stood up to leave the tab. They wrapped me in a bathrobe and led me to the main room. I dried and dressed in an Armani suite. Black and black shirt. Black tie and black shoes. I was given a black cape that was rimmed with dark green, along with an hourglass on a chain. The chain was silver with specks of silver, like seeping mercury. The hourglass held fine sand grains mixed with minute emeralds and some sort of black stone. The servant instructed me to wrap the chain around my wrist and let the hourglass dangle just out of my reach. 

They slicked my hair back and applied some sort of strong scent – I didn't like it but they said that Annabel wanted it. I nodded because Annabel wanted it. 

She came in dressed in deep red. Her hair was down, but from around her temples and her ears, it was pulled back in an intricate twist. I'd never seen her with her hair down before, it was beautiful and there was so much of it there. I wanted to run my fingers through and bury my face in it. Her ball gown trailed behind her, her shoes were open and showed off her tiny buffed toes. The gown was sleeveless, but her shoulders weren't showing as usual. It was rimmed with black as deep as the stones that she wore around her neck and let dangle from her ears. Her makeup was light and her lips seemed like glass even as her eyelids shimmered and caught the light. In her hair, there were tiny white flowers and crystals. 

'You look so handsome, petal.' Sh put her hands on my shoulders as she always did and smiled. 'How do I look?' she asked as she did a little twirl in her elegant dress. She'd never asked me how she looked. She always knew how she looked, she was always confident and strong. She never seemed concerned with such pity things as dresses or shoes.  This new side of her was still baffling me. 

'Beautiful, you always look beautiful,' and even as I said it, I found that I couldn't stop my eyes from roaming over her. She was beautiful as she'd always been. 

'Don't stare so, china doll . And don't let your jaw hang like that,' She shut my mouth with a loud snap and grinned. She'd never grinned before. I caught her eyes and I was transfixed. The smile died from her face, and she cocked her head to one side as I studied the depth of her pupils. I'd never realised before, but her emerald eyes were tinged with grey. It could be seen if one concentrated on it. Like someone had gotten a quill and added a few strokes. With her red flaming hair, she looked colourful. It only added to her beauty I decided. 

It started to get awkward when I finally decided to ask about that chain that I'd been given. 'It's the symbol of our house. An hourglass. Just like that little ugly crest for Hogwarts.' I followed her as we walked through the double doors and turned into a long corridor lined with doors and portraits just like all the others.  

'What does it mean? Why an hourglass?' I'd asked as I hurried to catch up with her. 

'Keeping time time time in a sort of Runic rhyme…' she said over her shoulder and rounded a corner. 

'What?'

'Had we but world enough, and time...' she said and her voice rose a couple of octaves. 'The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.' She lifted her hands as she spoke and her voice was yet louder. 'Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton, Time….' She spoke like a preacher and I'd never seen her so passionate about anything. Something tingled in my chest as I hurried to keep up.  'Why, I hold fate clasped in my fist, and could command the course of time's eternal motion, hadst thou been one thought more steady than an ebbing sea… All my possessions for a moment of time… Time, the avenger! Time, the devourer of everything!' 

'Time goes, you say? Ah no! Alas, Time stays, we go!' She yelled and stopped, turning around to me she cocked her head in that new way that I found I liked very much. 'Ring any bells?' she asked in a quite whisper.

'Is it meant to…?' I asked in a moment of bafflement. 

'Time. There is nothing else that matters to us but time. To us, time is the only friend. For we live and things die, we live and things whether away with time. But we live with time. As long as here is time, here we are. If there is no time, there is no us. Alpha and Beta. Time and us. Us and time. Do you get it now?' 

'You and time. Time is important to you. I get it,' I said, not really getting it at all. 

'Time is the most powerful weapon in the world, petal. It is the never dying, the ever growing. Empires rise and fall but time remains. People live and die but Time remains. People die because of old age, because of Time. Empires fall because of Time, because time makes them fall. Their time is up. There is no power in weapons or wealth because in time, all these things waste away. But Time itself is always there. Time was there with Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, Chinggis Khan, Lenin, Stalin, Moa, and Hitler. They thought they would live forever and rule forever but Time had other plans. In time, they lost power and poof! They perished. But Time remained. Because in the end, Time has all power. Time was there at the start and it will be there at the end. When it finishes so will everything else. But it will last forever. That's why our crest is Time. We will last forever.' 

I wanted to tell her that she was contradicting herself. I wanted to tell her she was making no sense whatsoever. Instead, I nodded, and, satisfied, she threw open a set of golden double doors. There was a short hallway and then another door. At this, she stopped and composed herself. She knocked thrice and waited. She was bid to enter and I guessed that we were entering Marcus' study. She opened the door and gestured for me to follow. 

There were shelves climbing all the way to the ceiling. Ancient books lived there, with ancient tails and ancient words. At the far end of the enormous room were drapes falling from the border of the wall. They were black, with golden pulls on the side to open them. There was a chandelier with about fifty candles in the middle of the curved ceiling which also seemed to be carved into the building. The carpet was white and fluffy, not a speck of dust or dirt touched it. A seating area held the middle of the room, around a mahogany coffee table. 

At the base of the wall opposite from where we stood, there was a desk, a mahogany desk, there was a chair, a mahogany chair, and on the chair sat a man. A beautiful man. He had pitch black silk hair that reached below his shoulders; it was tied with a blue ribbon just under his nape. His eyes were a dark blue almost black colour. His lips were thin and peach, but perfect on his face. He had an oval shaped face with a pointy chin and nose. 

He was tall and graceful, his shoulders weren't wide but they held his body elegantly. On his hands, neck and face his skin was as white as porcelain. Flawless and clear. When he looked up to see Annabel a smile graced his face and he rose. He walked around his desk and came towards us. He and Annabel met half way and he blessed her with a kiss on each cheek. I felt a pang of jealousy, but set it aside, obviously this man was like an older brother or father to her. Marcus had one of his hands holding the nape of her neck and the other rested on her cheek. 

'My Annabel,' he said pensively and his voice struck my very bone marrow with the authority that it carried. The voice of my father or Snape could in no way be compared to this. He called her my Annabel, I didn't want him calling her that, for she was _my_ Annabel. I stood back and watched as the man's eyes roamed her face and gown. 'The youngest of my family and the most beautiful. For you certainly look adoringly beautiful tonight.'

'Thank you my lord,' Her voice was back to being steady and, by no doubt, there was that same cold smile on her face. 'I wanted to introduce someone to you-' she turned then and gestured me forward. When I came and stood next to her, she put her hand between my shoulder blades and introduced me to him. 'Draco Malfoy, my china doll.' 

Marcus inspected me; I could feel his eyes eating up every part of my body. His eyes lingered on my hair and then a little on the chain that hung from my hand. When I looked at him and inspected him closely, I felt like I'd been caught in an enchantment. He had a commanding presence, but yet it made me feel like I could lay back and sleep. My eyes felt heavy and I knew if he told me to go jump off the highest tower in this building, I would. Something about him caught me, I felt respect for this man, not out of fear but probably love. I'd fallen in love with him. Not the same love that I had for Annabel but love for something that I wished to learn from, read, unravel. 

'Draco Malfoy… who's Lucius Malfoy?' 

'My father.' I heard my voice, I didn't know that I'd spoken but my voice sounded smooth and sure. Something sputtered across his features and suddenly his head snapped towards Annabel and his hand rose for her shoulder. 

'You bring a Malfoy into our midst! The son of Lucius Malfoy, no less!' 

'My lord,' she said quietly and put her hand on his chest. With that, she stepped closer and pressed her body against his, one hand on his chest and another on his back. 'My lord,' she said again, this time her voice was low and husky. 'I would do nothing to endanger the family. You know that. I do not bring an enemy, I bring a friend. I've made him, he poses no harm… I'm sure of that… Do you trust my judgment, my lord?' 

Marcus looked down at her, at her face, at her lips that were mere inches from his and a soft smile played at his lips. 'Yes, I do.'  She smiled at him slowly, ever so slowly and kissed his cheek. They made a good picture, I thought, the one of the dominant male and the innocent and beautiful maiden. I hated it. Why was she pressed against him like that? What was that look that Marcus was giving her? Why did she kiss his cheek in that way? Were they… 

'Draco, I give you my trust on the account of Annabel's word. Prove us wrong and you would have damned yourself to hell,' Marcus said. Annabel moved away from him and curtsied. 

'Thank you,' I said. 'Why do you distrust the Malfoys?' 

His brow lifted and his lips pressed. 'For centuries, the Malfoys have held this house a grudge. At every chance they get, they kill one of our own. What choice do we have but to strike back? We do, we kill some of them too, but they were the ones that started this feud. This went on as skirmishes for so long until one of our ancestors made a vow to strike down every last Malfoy. He died before fulfilling that vow, he had the same skin disease that Annabel has and he was exposed to the sun. By a Malfoy. It is then the duty of this house to carry out his vow. There will come a day when it will be fulfilled. That time has not come and will not come for a while. But it will. I feel it.' He paused and considered me for a while. 'Would you not do the same for you kin, Draco, kill for those that you love?'

'Yes,' I answered with out hesitation, my mind automatically skipping to Annabel. 'I would kill for those that I love.' 

'Good. Because you are young and uneducated in this matter, I will lift the curse that bids you no entrance to this house. Only if you follow Annabel. Will you be at the ball then? Annabel could introduce you formally as a new member to this family. You will be a minor member, one with no powers or word until you are deemed worthy enough to become a major member like I and Annabel. You will remain with her until then, you will do as she says, do as she does and obey her every order. Her _every_ order. You will be her apprentice and she will teach you the ways of the House of Time. Do you understand?'

I did, I wanted to understand and I wanted to do everything that he told me. Not because of his power, his enchanting air or even because I seemed to love him so much. It was because I got to do all these things with Annabel. My Annabel. The Annabel that I loved and wanted to make love with. 

'Yes, sir.' He nodded and walked back to his desk. Annabel took this as her cue to get us out and she took my hand. We did not speak until were back in my room. 

'That went remarkably well, don't you think?'

Had she missed something that I hadn't? 

'Is there something between you and Marcus?' 

'What would make you ask something like that?' she asked as she moved to the dresser to check her hair and makeup. 

'How you had your hands on him… you kissed him-'

'I kiss you, there's nothing going on between you and I in that way.' 

'But-'

'No, Draco, there is nothing going on between me and Marcus in that nature.' Her voice was stiff and I could see that she was mighty uncomfortable when it came to talking about herself. I wanted to prod her out of that, to make her open up to me like I'd opened up to her at the age of fourteen. 

'Who are you with then? You must be with someone….' 

'I'm not. I'm alone.'

'Why?' 

'Why what?'

'What aren't you-'

'Oh, Draco, stop it! Stop asking questions! I don't like answering questions, stop it! I _order_ you to stop it!'    

She'd never lost her temper before, just like she'd never been excited, giddy, flirtatious or funny. I'd never seen the way her right hand flexed when she was angry, how she screwed her eyes shut or how a little crease appeared on top of her left eyebrow when she was highly emotional. It must've been this house, I decided. This house had an impact on her and I liked it. Just like I liked it when she was cool and composed, I liked it now when she showed this new part of her. 

A servant knocked on the door and entered, he said something to her and she nodded, waving him away. 

'We're going down to the main hall now, where all of the balls in this castle are held. We are the family – I am, you are not – of this house, the ones who are holding the ball, so we will be making a fashionably late entrance. We will greet the guests and socialize. Stay close to me and listen to everything I say. Try not to make any mistakes, china doll, I wouldn't want to have _break_ you.' She smiled with stiff, polite courtesy and walked to the door. 

So that's how she was when she was angry. I imagined that she would use my out-of-place in this house against me every time I angered her. Hold her power over my head. Just like she would scowled a cat and kick it when it scratched or hissed. Later on, I learned that my guess was right. She would use that on me as a weapon, it was her way, her defence mechanism.

We walked through many corridors and doors, one staircase and another corridor. All the way, we were gradually joined by the rest of the occupants of the house. Annabel greeted them politely and they smiled behind her back, they could sense her anger just like I could as she hurried along in front of us all and thrust on her gloves. When Marcus joined us, he greeted her and she forced a stiff smile to him. He fell in step with the rest of us and gave her an amused smile. I wasn't smiling, though, her anger made me uneasy, it gave me that fluttering feeling in my stomach that I so detested. 

I only recognised three people from those who walked with us. Marcus, who was engaged in conversation with some other man who looked Japanese or Chinese. Roxanne, I recognised her even though she was positively dressed in a gown of deep orange and pink. And Tobias, I only recognised him because he was the only one close to my body size. 

He looked no older then nineteen, with brown curls, porcelain skin, a small, almost feminie mouth, and a mischievous spangle in his eye. He played with his sleeves as he walked, and a blond woman, who walked next to him, currently occupied in a conversation with a very dark man, turned to him and slapped his hands that were held at chest hight. He looked put out and stopped fiddling. He looked up then as if a sixth sense told him I was watching. 

As if to scare me, he bared his teeth and hissed. I found it weird, not scary, I smirked and lifted a disinterested eyebrow. As if to entertain me – and show off – he closed his wrists. When he opened them a galleon was between his index and middle finger, he closed his wrists again and opened them, the galleon was gone. I wasn't that impressed, after all, I did have a wand in my pocket. He amused me, though. I decided to make a point to make a friend out of that man. 

We all stopped in front of huge oak doors, Annabel still fiddled with her gloves, her face serious, slightly irritated. I found her irresistible in that state. Marcus stepped up next to her and got a firm hold of her hands and then released them. 

'Relax, Butterfly, you aren't nervous are you?' 

'Do not jest, Marcus, you know I hate when you tease me.'  

'Yes, but I enjoy it so much.'  

A servant appeared at the doors and I knew he was waiting to be given the order to open them. I'd been to enough balls at the manor to know how these things worked. I wasn't the least nervous about it. Marcus waited next to Annabel and it was obvious that he meant to walk in with her.   

'Oh, Marcus, walk in with me! You walked in with her last time!' Roxanne appeared at Marcus' elbow and squealed in a voice that I – if I wasn't totally devoted to Annabel – would have found most arousing. Marcus looked down at her and then looked away in a manner of someone with too little time to deal with silly girls. 

'That's because she doesn't claw at me and have an orgasm over it, Rox.' 

'Uh!' Roxanne folded her gloved hands over her chest and shrugged like a spoilt child with an irresistibly sexy pout. Marcus seemed to be trying to ignore her, and if she'd had the same effect on him that she was threatening to have on me, it must've been very hard to do so. 'Marcus!' she wailed and tugged on his arm. 'I want to walk in with you, you know how I love you.'  He sighed.

'Oh, go ahead,' Annabel said and gave him a stiff smile. 'I'll walk in with anybody else.' 

She took a firm grip on my hand, her nails digging viciously into my wrist, and stood me behind Marcus as she stood on my left behind Roxanne. Roxanne turned around and was definitely smug. 

'Stop being so down Annie, you make for such bad company when you're like that.' 

Annabel was glaring daggers at the other woman when the doors were thrown opened and The House of Time was introduced. The hall was huge and long, on the far wall I spotted the house crest – the hourglass and fangs. 

It was a sea of heads. Women wearing every colour known to man, and men dressed in dark monochromes of black, green and brown. Then there were the guests from entirely different cultures, dressed in entirely different clothes. There were women dressed in the traditional dress of India – a Sari – and China. One man was dressed like those African people who I'd seen in old story books, with the naked chest, the wrap around skirt and the material around one shoulder. There was a man in a turban and a woman with peacock feathers in her hair. 

They all had one thing in common, though. On all their clothes were little crests. Just like Annabel, Tobias, Marcus, Roxanne and the others had the hourglass and fangs and I held the chain, other houses had other signs. There was wolf, hands, feathers, a lion, a bird, a bee and even a giant pebble. 

We descended the stairs with my arm held out supporting Annabel's hand. 'Don't wander off until I give you permission. Do as I say and don't step a toe out of line.' I looked at her from the corner of my eye and saw the change. The anger in her face evaporated like water on red coals, a playful, coquettish, devilish expression replaced it instead. It wasn't just an expression, it was all over her body movement. I was amazed. The change was split second. When we got to the bottom, Marcus and Roxanne had already started greeting guests. Annabel did the same and I stood beside her. She didn't introduce me and when they asked she told them to wait and see. 

She flirted with the men, they took her hands and kissed them, she touched their faces and put her hands on their chests. An American wizard whispered something in her ear and her laughter boiled my blood, her answer infuriated me further. 

'Oh, I'd love to be bad with you, sir, but I'm afraid I don't know_ how_ to _be_ bad,' she pouted and the men around her chuckled. 

The women kissed her cheek and they whispered to each other in low voices. In the way that just told you women were talking about naughty things. Especially when they sneaked looks at some men and turned back with giggles. There was white and red wine. Annabel told me to drink the white wine, she told me not to over drink. 

There was music and dancing. It wasn't classical like at the parties that my parents held, it was modern music. Muggle and magical artists. I recognised The Weird Sisters and a travelling band named Pirates for Sirens. There was slow music where they danced in couples and fast music where they jumped, touched each other and snogged. Annabel danced with many men; they all laid their hands on her and whispered dirty things in her ears. I found myself checking my watch continuously as my blood simmered in my veins after watching her being passed from one man's hold to the other. She was like a lamb passed and tasted by a pack of wolves. 

When the huge grandfather clock struck twelve the music stopped and everybody paused. 

Annabel walked to and climbed half way up the steps. Every eye was on her as all noise dropped to a minimum. 

'On behalf of Marcus D'Aurelius, the father of The House of Time, I welcome you to our house.' She paused as the guests clapped, cheered and toasted. 'We thank you for being here, your presence honours us. You've all been here before, we enjoy your company and – we hope – you enjoyed ours as well. We want you to meet each other and socialise, get to know other houses from other countries for these times are hard. They aren't the times of our ancestors when the likes of us were feared, but nor are they the times when we had ultimate and absolute power. The times are changing. The world changes for us, each one of you, we must change with it. We change, accumulate, but never lose the bonds that hold us together, that make us strong to endure and never forget what our great, great, grandmothers and grandfather had to do so we could be here today.' There was a murmur of agreement and she waited until it completely died away.  When she went on, her voice was calmer, more even and mysterious like a man revealing a greatly hidden secret. 

'But tonight,' she said, 'is a different night to all those before it. Tonight, I present to you a gift that I've been given by Time itself. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Draco Malfoy, the newest member of The House of Time.' She stepped back and held her hands out to present me. Something happened that had never happened before. All the guests, every young and old, black and white, bowed. They bent their back legs and got down on their front legs. A sea of backs I saw and the sight moved me. The fine hair on my arms stood. I turned to Annabel in question and she was curtsying. She looked up and smiled. 

'Welcome, my china doll.' She whispered to me. When the crowed stood up, I inclined my head and raised my glass. They all did the same and drank. 

'Enjoy yourselves,' she told them, 'and may this be a night that you remember.' 

By the end of the ball, they were all exhausted. I wasn't, for I hadn't danced as much as any of them. After I had been introduced many wizards and witches had welcomed me in their midst. By the end of the night, I knew not the name of one of them. I danced with a couple of women, but it wasn't really anything of value as I had done so millions of times at Malfoy balls. 

The House of Time were all at the doors saying goodbye and thanking the guests for coming at the end of the ball. The moon was still up but I estimated that it will start setting in half an hour or so. After they had all left, there was a sigh and everybody – falling off their feet and in Roxanne's case, slightly tipsy – headed to their rooms. Annabel walked me back to my room in silence. 

When we reached it, she walked in with me to the second door after that little room and stopped there. She leaned on the doorframe and smiled at me sleepily. 

'Did you enjoy yourself, petal?' She seemed to have forgotten her previous anger with me and I was glad. 'You'll probably have more fun when you know more people. For a first timer, I think you went great. You didn't even say one stupid thing.' 

'I did enjoy myself, thank you.' I told a half truth, for I had enjoyed watching her all night. Just watching her, not watching her with other men. I didn't think it was the right time to say anything concerning that matter, for we were both tired. 

'Sleep well, china doll, we go a-hunting tomorrow. Shoes, tailors, accessories, lunch-' she yawned '-and some stuff for me.' with a tired giggle, she leaned in and kissed my cheek. It occurred to me, it was the first time that she'd ever done that. With another yawn she whispered a goodnight and left. I sighed and walked into my room. The servants were there. They undressed me and re-dressed me in nightclothes. I was too tired to complain. I fell on my bed and they tucked me in. I was asleep before they'd blown out all the candles.


	3. In

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. All the new characters and situations are mine, my own. 

Warning: fic contains sexual situations, profanity and things not suitable for children under the age of thirteen. 

A well thought out review will do me just fine. ;)__

_She_

Part three:

We'd gone shopping that day. I thought we would go to Diagon Alley, but we went to Muggle London instead. When we walked into a store that obviously sold formal wear, it occurred to me that it was quite stupid to think that we would go to Diagon Alley for wizard clothes when I hadn't seen anybody dressed in wizard clothes since leaving Hogwarts.  

Hogwarts. 

I hadn't thought of it all the previous day. It didn't matter to me that they were probably looking for me – the school and my parents – nor did it matter to me that I was missing out on school days. That I would probably be put on suspension for leaving school grounds without permission. Or that I didn't intend to go back, nor did it seem as if Annabel was giving me up anytime soon. 

There was no further mention of her treatment of me the day before, I didn't want to mention it least she flare up again. The more that I thought about it, the more I realised that I had done nothing wrong. I had the right to ask her about her life, past and even love life like she'd asked me about mine. I left it at that though; I thought that to start trouble about it again would not be worth it. I would wait when the moment brought itself up. It was bound to. 

I was slightly uncomfortable at having her buy me all these things, but when I offered to withdraw money from my Gringotts vault, she hit my forehead with the palm of her hand.  Nobody had ever done that before, I was too shocked to argue with her when she laid out the pros to going to Diagon alley from the first place. 

She said that I was a known face, being a Malfoy and all, and since I had gone out of school without permission and that she'd taken me, there would be, by no doubt, Ministry officials on the look out. Even if we did manage to get in there unseen – which was impossible since Annabel was wearing a robe and mask with gloves – I would have to use my name to withdraw money from my vault. She said that she didn't doubt for a second that the Ministry had ordered the goblins to notify them when Draco withdrew money from his vault. Since they probably estimated that I would need money for survival at one point or another. 

She bought me a couple of suits – black, green, blue, brown and other dark colours – shirts to match, capes, gloves, many pairs of shoes, cologne, hair products and underwear. She went to the men's department in a store and picked out my underwear. My mother had stopped doing that when I was eleven, but her doing it brought me thinking of buying _her_ underwear, which made me think of her naked, with me on top. My thoughts sort of went downhill from there. To my enjoyment – and luck – she then went to the woman's department in a store named David Jones and bought herself underwear. Lingerie. I got to watch. 

She picked a few sets and went into the dressing room and she took me with her. She would put one on and come outside, do a little walk for me and take my opinion. I didn't mind seeing her half naked, what I minded was the ever growing bulge in my pants that she seemed totally oblivious to. She came out in a sort of nightgown that was right under her panties. It was transparent and black. She wore panties but no brassiere. She stood admiring herself in the mirror as my eyes threatened to fall out of my face. She'd turned around unexpectedly and giggled when she caught me staring. 

Another outfit – of the many that she had worn – was a red corset with black lace, a G-string, black stockings that finished inches away from her panties, kept up by garter clipped on to her G.

Her waist was small and her hips and thighs were like those of the islander women but in proportion with her body. She stood so close to me, I could just touch her and feel her skin. She was standing right in front of me, looking at her reflection and inspecting the price tag on the corset.  She had a leg in front of the other, which gave her hips a more rounded shape. 

'What do you think, Draco?' she was asking but I wasn't really paying attention to _her_. I wanted to cup her bottom and squeeze. I was extremely aroused by the portion of her thighs that I could see between the black stockings and the G-string. 

Fantasies began playing in my mind where I would grab her, sit her in my lap, move her G aside and drive into her. Fantasies where she would moan and cry out my name. Where I would peel off that corset and eat the rosy crown of her breast. Where she would arch her back, throw her head and give her neck so I could kiss and bite. 

In my fantasies there was no place for soft and sensual love making. I was harsh, I got what I wanted and she liked it when I scratching the inside of her thighs or bit the side of her rounded breast. I wanted her, all of her, in my arms with me inside her. The need to feel her skin against mine and the moist warmth between her thighs, to taste that moist and smell it had me holding my head in my hand, closing my eyes tightly and taking deep calming breaths. 

'Draco? What's wrong?' she was asking as she bent over, her maternal instincts kicking in as she put a hand on my forehead. 

_For fuck's sake, don't touch me! _I remember thinking at the time as her scent – sex and mystery – clouded my mind. All I could do to prevent anything that would make me look stupid and have her angry at me again, was to swat her hand half-heartedly. She huffed and swatted my hand back. I was sweating from the effort of pinning my hands to my side especially when her breasts and cleavage were mere inches from my grasp. __

I chanced opening my eyes and the look on her face – the one that was concerned and sympathetic – put fire in my heart. The kind that wanted to burn and eat like a mad dragon. 

'I'm alright, I … felt dizzy…' was the best answer I could come up with. 

'Do you want go home and sleep? Food? Water?' she asked. She stood up and looked down at me with worry. 

'No, no. Let's just leave... put something on.' All this was said and I managed not to look at her once. 

'Okay then, before we leave, tell me, what do you think of this? Should I get it?' she asked as she again started inspecting her image in the mirror. I made the mistake of looking at her again. Her arms were really very thin, I had seen them before but now I realised. So was her waist. But then she went out and my eyes followed that. Her thighs were full and just what every man wanted in a woman. Travelling back up, my eyes lingered on the strip of skin around the V of the front of her G-string. It became increasingly uncomfortable as I sat and tried to cover my erection. 

Didn't she know that I'm made of flesh and red, warm blood? Didn't she know what she was doing to me? I knew she knew exactly what she was doing… what kind of seductive power her body had on me, but I don't think it mattered to her. Either because she was always checked out by men and complimented – which I knew to be true – or because she enjoyed torturing and playing with me – which I also knew to be true. 

She was spinning to see herself from all angles. I got a quick bottom and front flash and I lost it. I grabbed her hips and she yelped in surprise when I snatched her and put my lips on the tender skin just on the inside of her hip. My greedy hands clutched her bottom just like I imagined I'd do and I squeezed, harder then was probably necessary.

I moved my mouth onto her slit and through the satiny material of her panties I used my tongue on her lips. Through the haze of my own desire I heard her cry out and I pulled her closer to me, nearly on my lap as my hand pulled down the barely there G from the back. Her hands were on mine as she pulled her undies back up. She grabbed my wrists and gently but firmly held them away from her. My mouth was still working on her front and I could now hear her ragged breathing even over the pounding blood in my ears. 

She pulled away and I opened my eyes to see the wet spot were I had had my tongue and teeth. She dropped my hands and took a few steps back. I couldn't look at her, I couldn't see the anger in her eyes or even the disgust of having a much younger man – barely a man – groping her and clumsily trying to have her. I felt shame and my own disgust at how I acted. I had never been like this – wanted anybody like this – to know how to act around someone that I was madly in love with but had just made a complete fool out of my self in front. 

All I could do was cover my face and hurry out of the change rooms. I heard her calling but I ignored her and hurried away into the crowed of shopping Muggles. I was almost positive that my face was the same colour as the corset that she'd been wearing. 

I only stopped walking when I was completely out of the shopping centre. Outside was a seating area with a fountain in the middle. There was a statue of a seal, water sprouting from his mouth and two flippers. The water dampened the air and I pulled my coat tighter around me. The ground was cobbled with light brown stone faded from the thousands of people who scoffed across it everyday. Muggles were sitting on stone Roman style benches in couples, families and alone. There was a little boy sitting on the edge of the fountain, teasing the goldfish that swam there. His mother and father sat on a bench near by and they looked over their day's shopping.  

I took steps forward, closer to the boy. I watched him as he caught a fish in the water and then let go, watching it swim away. So innocent the boy seemed, and I tried to look back to find the time when I was like that. When all I wanted to do was catch fish and giggle as they struggled in my hold. When I didn't think of tasting a grown woman or feeling her skin moving under mine or imagining her hips rising up to meet my thrusts. When I didn't hate or want to hurt people for the joy of seeing that terrible split second expression on their faces. 

I stood closer to the boy and tried imagining myself his age, doing the same thing. I couldn't. I couldn't imagine my innocence or the days when I was a child who gave my unquestioning trust to the first stranger that came off the street. I couldn't even get myself to remember them. I didn't want to, I was determined to believe that I was never innocent, in a way, to punish myself by convincing my mind that I'd always been impure. Tarnished, flawed, dirty and marked by time that revealed to everyone that I was really a devil – a demon, an unworthy – hiding under the skin of a baby, a child and then a man. 

A man unworthy of a woman like Annabel. I wanted to convince myself that she'd rejected me because I was less then she deserved, because I was too tainted but not because she didn't love me. Couldn't bring herself to think about loving me in years to come. 

I was convinced that I'd lost her. That my stupid hands, my stupid mouth, my stupid brain and my stupid lust had pushed her away from me. I was convinced that she'd come out of the shopping centre and tell me that I had to go back to school because she didn't want me anymore. That I could no longer keep the honour of being Annabel's china doll. 

'I had a goldfish once,' the boy who I'd been watching looked up and then looked back down and giggled when the goldfish passed through the arch that he made with his fingers. 'It died.'

'Daddy said that all things die and that's for the best. Mommy said that one day she and daddy will die too, and I will die.' The boy looked up at me and considered, his blue eyes that seemed too large for his face, glittered with innocence. 'You'll probably die too but I don't think so… you don't look like someone who would die.' 

'Lisa said that she'll get me another goldfish if I wanted one but I said no. She got me a turtle but that was boring. All it did was eat and hide inside its shell. It never wanted to play and I could never get it to chase me because it was too slow. I gave it to Mike, he liked it. He says the turtle chased him all the way down that street and up again because he knocked on its shell. He's lying though, I don't think it did. I think I'll tell Lisa to get me a lizard or a Koala, I was watching T.V and I saw that they had Koalas in Australia. Lisa said she'd get me one if I was real good…'

Lisa, I thought. Did this child love this Lisa as much as I love Annabel? No, he didn't, he couldn't. No one could love the way I do, as much as I do. I loved her so much I wanted to take pictures of her and stick them all over the walls so I could see her when she wasn't with me and enjoy her more when she was. I wanted to bind her to me, so she could never be with another man again. 

Jealousy went through me at the thought of any other man doing what I had just did to her. I hated how she flirted with other men, how her coquettish manners attracted all those men to her. How I knew every other man around her wanted to touch her and fuck her. How I couldn't, but they all could. How she would let them but wouldn't let me. How she didn't want me that way. 

Soon, the boy's mother came and took him, joining the father, they walked away. I watched them until they'd disappeared behind a pillar and out of sight. I realised that it was totally dark now, the street lights had gone on and the younger crowds had come out with their friends. 

The girls dressed in short, form fitting clothes with boys trying to get as close to them as they can. Was everybody always thinking about sex? I'd wondered with irritation. I was always thinking about Annabel, and I knew very well were all my thoughts led me with her. So I was always thinking about sex too, I decided. 

It didn't matter now because my shame would keep me from looking her in the eye again. The memory of the smell of her sex made me shiver with need. My temperature rose up a few notches and I allowed my coat to fall open to let the breeze cool me down. I looked up at the sky and the city lights made it difficult to spot any stars. I remembered the time when Annabel told me how mortals always looked up at the sky for answers. Why did they, I wondered. Why do I? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The smell of honeysuckle filled my nostrils. 

'Draco…' I turned to her. She'd taken off the robe and mask, she wore one of her puffy dresses, the colour of lime with red leaves designed on the bodice. Diamonds adorned her neck and ears. 

'I'm sorry I…' but the look on her face wasn't angry and it certainly didn't need apologizing. 

'Draco I shouldn't have made you sit there while I was changing, I'm sorry, it was wrong of me seeing how you're…'

'In love with you?' I asked, too tired to run around in circles. 

'Yes, that's exactly it.'

'You're saying I'm excused because I'm in love with you?' It angered me that she was giving me pity and that she understood. I wanted her to be angry because if she was understanding then that would be the end of that, but if she was angry then she'd demand an explanation and I had more then ten ways of giving her one. Happily, they all included her melting under my touch and moaning. 

'Yes.' She put a finger on my lips when I started to speak – I don't remember what I was going to say but I was glad that she stopped me, I'm pretty sure I would've ruined it again. 'It's okay, forget it.'

'I want to know, would you… consider…'

'Draco… I couldn't…' 

I nodded, once, twice and turned to leave. Her hand shot out and she grabbed my wrist. I was surprised at her speed and that was why I didn't stop her when she brought me to her and wrapped her arms around me. She said that she was sorry that she couldn't ever do anything like what I wanted with me. 

'Why do you let all those other men touch you and-'

'Shhh, china doll, shhh.' 

And I did. 

*

Days gave way to weeks and weeks let pass months. After only a few days in that enchanted castle that was the House of Time, I began losing track of the days. Nobody seemed to keep track of time or days there, it seemed unimportant whether one spent an hour on a task or a minute. 

At the start of my stay, Annabel had introduced me personally to each of the house occupants. I got to know Tobias better just like I wanted to and he was always good company with his quick hands, witty mind and child-like facial expressions. There was a Japanese man named Chu-Ya, who seemed in his mid thirties, I found him wise and very timid but firm – he advised that I come to him and learn meditation and how to control my mind and temper. Mussa, a south African man, started teaching me a sort of spiritual magic that included a lot of metaphors and putting myself in the 'paws of a lion.' 

Benjamin was good, light company, and his little brother, Egi was also friendly but more impulsive. There were also Sebastian, who swung both ways, and Annabel told me to be careful. Shawn never spoke, not to me anyway.

Ailionora, was a woman in her early twenties, with curly brown hair and matching eyes. She had childish complexions but a very husky voice that sounded oddly out of place – she spent a lot of time watching Mussa. Elva and Edith always teased her about it. Elva was a tall woman with light skin, dark hair and grey eyes, she was French and very seductive in her movements. Edith was Irish and very proud, with sandy hair, blue eyes and a wide smile. She and Benjamin spent a large amount of their time in each other's embrace. At last, there was Emma, a thirty year old who always held a cup of red wine and sat alone with a picture of her dead four-year-old daughter. 

They treated each other politely and all answered to Marcus and took their problems to him. If they had any disagreements, he always played arbitrator, and they accepted his judgment without debate. 

All of their lives consisted of balls, sex, talk, money, clothes, and, in Edith and Benjamin's, case many public displays of affection or reading and research for Marcus. Annabel did a little of all. She wasn't vain nor was she shallow, but I felt like it hadn't occurred to her that she could actually do more with her life. She seemed content with what she was doing already. 

Many balls were held at the House of Time and in those balls, many men kept their eyes on Annabel as she circled the room with many others. She flirted and she let a handful of men grope at her. I already knew that she'd taken at least six men to her bed. She'd leave the party and I'd only see her late the next morning, I always smelled them on her.

During all this, I turned seventeen. On my birthday, Annabel woke me up in the morning and pulled me to the bathroom where those same two menservants washed me. They tied my hair that I'd let grow past my shoulders with a blue ribbon that Annabel had chosen. 

'You're now higher up on the hierarchy in the House of Time, petal. You have power over the servants now, even though you still belong to me and have to do as I tell you.' She told me as we sat on my bed once I was dried and clothed. She must've saw a glitter of annoyance and anger in me because she squeezed me hand and held it to her cheek. 'Don't feel so, china doll, when I first entered the family, I had to go through the same thing. We all did, even Marcus was once a seventeen year old boy with only power over the servants too.'

More days ran by and I estimated that outside the House of time, it was late August. I questioned the irony of it: inside the House of Time, there really was no time. Time in itself, did not exist. Whether it really did or not, it was not acknowledged, therefore its questionable existence affected no one and nothing. So if it did exist or did not, it was all the same.

I never heard one of the occupants asking the time, the day or the month. The grandfather clock in the main hall was only heard during the many balls and banquets. None of the people that lived inside seemed to age or change. Outside the house, women mourned the years that passed them by and men never asked a woman's age because it was considered rude and impolite. Here, age was nothing, not feared and not dreaded.  No ball was held on New Year's Eve or Day. They did not even seem to notice that another year just passed them by as they plunged blindly into another. 

I figured out a way to keep track of time, as I could not rely on the sun because the windows were all draped. It was out of my own obsession to get things done on time, be there at this many minutes past and do this before the dead line on that day.

I ignored how pointless it was to keep track of anything inside the house, I drew up a calendar. I figured that if I was off a day or two it would make no difference anyway so I estimated what day it was. When Annabel found out she was furious, she picked it up from the table in my room and ordered one of the servants to have it burned. When the servant took it from her, he held it out like it was diseased. I did not understand why she did this, nor would she really explain to me what was wrong. 

She only said, 'It is forbidden to keep any such things inside this house! Never again will you make this mistake Draco, do you understand?' I nodded and she stormed out of the room. 

I had gone wondering around the house, waiting for Annabel to calm down and seek me out herself as I had found was the best way to avoid another tantrum. I walked into the library, looking for someone to keep me company, as I was leaving I heard a sigh from the far corner. I squinted and across the enormous room, I saw Emma sitting with that same picture in her hands. I went over to her and sat on a chair to her side. She looked up and gave me a wary smile. 

'What was her name?' 

'Elizabeth, I had named her that.' She kissed the picture, a palm-sized portrait of a brown haired, fair-skinned child. 

'How did she…'

'There was a plague, she was a victim. She was only four but she died…' She lost her gaze in the face of the small girl again and she seemed to forget that I was with her as she rocked. A plague? In the last thirty years, there had never been a plague in England and Emma couldn't be any older than that, let alone old enough to have a child. The door opened and Marcus came in. 

'Emma!' he snapped and walked over to us. 'For heaven's sake woman! It's been two-' he cut himself off when he saw me and his expression softened. 'Emma, it's been a long time and yet you continue to mourn this child, won't you move on?' He kneeled down and held her hands in his, taking the portrait from her. Her eyes widened and he shook his head, a sad look covering his beautiful face. She began to sob and he sat next to her, taking her in his lap like a child, her head on his shoulder. I didn't know how to feel about this: he was the 'father' in the house and yet he cared enough to take Emma in his arms when she cried. He looked over the woman's shoulders and gave me a steady look. I nodded and rose, he mouthed a thank you and started whispering meaningless things to Emma.

It was the night of September the twenty fourth that another ball was held. As usual, Annabel left me to get dressed and then came back in her own elaborate gown. Her gown was black with orange spots around the breasts. She wore diamonds around her neck, on her ears and her wrists. On her right hip was the crest of the House of Time. She took from me the chain that held the hourglass and, on my right sleeve, with a brand, she burnt the crest neatly. 

When we arrived at the double doors to be announced, I noticed how Marcus was holding Emma's hand, and he descended with her. Everybody else noticed as well, all the house occupants that is, for we all wore knowing smiles. 

All the occupants of the house were as normal as they normally were at such balls. Except for me. 

I had to watch as a dark man that I'd never seen before, chased Annabel around the room. They flirted wildly, and my temper rose many notches until I could no longer contain myself. Instead of going over and engaging in furious hand-to-hand combat with the man, I busied myself with my drink. Yet, over the rim of my glass, I could still see them. 

This man would grab my Annabel, try to steal a kiss but she would giggle and push him away. In that way that women did when they were playing hard to get. I watched, I watched for more then two hours as he stole many kisses and pressed her body to his. Once, my glass shattered in my hand. Twice, I bumped into guests while my eyes ate them both up. Three times, that man put his hand under Annabel's dress and four times, she threw her head back in ecstasy. The last being when he pushed her up against the wall and rubbed himself against her through the skirts and petticoats that she wore. 

My anger was apparently quite obvious on my features because Chu-Ya came up to me and reminded me of the techniques that he had taught me, to suppress my emotions. Marcus, who still held Emma's hand, whispered in my ear to get a hold of myself, he said that Annabel was only playing. Was I that obvious? Did they all know my insanity that is my love for this woman? 

I found myself putting down my new acquired glass and pushing through the crowds towards her and that man. When I neared them, I got the shock of my life. 

From afar, it only seemed that he was kissing her neck and she his, but from close… blood. Blood trickled down the man's neck as Annabel put her mouth to it and drank. The man had his hand on her buttocks, grinding her against him, as she took his blood like a dying man would greedily take water from an earn.   

What was she doing? There were bite marks on her neck too. Annabel pulled away as she and the man shared a kiss and he placed kisses on her jaw to her neck. In turn, the man sank his fangs into her neck and began sipping lazily. 

I lost it then, my anger that had been suppressed since my arrival in this house broke free. It was like a dam breaking, all I saw was Annabel and that man hurting her. Annabel with her fangs sinking in the man's neck. My Annabel, in someone else's arms. 

I didn't know when I'd decided, but I was moving towards them. Pushing people out of my way and seeing only my target. I reached them and they both looked at me in surprise. I only heard my name once from Annabel's bloodied lips before I grabbed her by the arm, punched the man in the jaw and dragged her away. As I hurried towards the steps that led out of the ballroom, I could hear Annabel yelling at me and asking me to stop. I was out the hall and dragging her to my room. Half way there, she'd given up and was just following as I my nails dug in her arm and I dragged her.

I threw the doors opened, passed through the small foyer, opened the single door and threw Annabel into my room.  

'What the fuck were you and that man doing?' I yelled, inches away from her face as I looked down into her eyes. 

'What did it look like, petal?' she asked, her voice low, her lips hardly moving. 

There was silence.

I couldn't hear the music from the ballroom or my own ragged breathing. There was so much silence my ears ached to hear it. Slowly, ever so slowly, Annabel let out a breath. I glared into her eyes, those green pools of sparkling emerald. There was defiance there and a challenge, but also, her eyes seemed to be begging me to make a wild guess. They begged so loud I couldn't hear them, they seemed to be begging on a whole different plane of existence. Just as that breath, that sustains her life, I understood. Just as I did, a chain of unanswered questions was broken. 

'What are you?' 

There was a moment and in another, she bared her fangs and hissed as a cat would at a threatening dog. I think she expected me to be afraid, to turn from her or step back in shock. One of my hands unclenched and I grabbed her upper arms, brining her closer and nearly lifting her off the ground. They were back in and she wore a defying expression, her chin held up as if telling me that how I judged her did not matter. 

'Did you not guess before? Did your mind not once make the connection? Or are you too much in love to see?' She mocked me and my hands itched to hurt her. 'I'm a vampire, Draco. We all are. Marcus, Emma, Tobias, Mussa, Edith even that man that you hit. All the houses are families of vampires. Remember when I said that we live and things die, we live and things whether away with time. But we live with time. As long as here is time, here we are… Alfa and Omega… time and us. Us. Vampires!'

'Vampires….' I repeated. 

'Remember at the first ball when I introduced you, remember what I said when the clock struck twelve… The times are changing. The world changes for us, each one of you, we must change with it. We change, accumulate but never lose the bonds that hold us together, that make us strong to endure… to endure time, my china doll. To endure-' she leaned in and whispered. '-immortality!'

'You lie….' I refused to believe her, even though the bigger part of me knew she was telling no lie. I pushed her away from me and took a step back. She burst into laughter, not because the situation was funny, but to mock me. 

'Look at all the clues! I stand here in front of your eyes, a clue! Why do you think I wear these silly things when I got out under the sun? What vampire could endure sunlight? Skin disease my ass! Why do you think, for two years, I only came to you at night? It's because I did not want you to become suspicious that I might be something unnatural.' 

'Your skin…' I said, 'the whiteness of it, it's almost like porcelain, all of you, it's unnatural. It's almost like a mirror. Your eyes, they suck up the light and colours… all these windows-'I gestured to the one that was framed in the wall near the bedside table. '-they're all draped and boarded shut.'

'Now you understand my china doll.' She walked towards me and took my face in her hands. 'We have no use for time either, for we live and will live forever.' She sounded insane with her own words. Her eyes were glittering with lunacy, her mouth was in half a smile, her cheeks were rosy. Gradually, I understood her and realisation dawned on me. 

She wasn't what she'd led me to believe. Everything about her was a lie. She wasn't the woman that I'd fallen in love. I hadn't fallen in love with an immortal. The very idea of immortality seemed unreal, bigger then I am. As I looked at her and studied her face and her body like an eager student, I began to see the distance that was a gulf between us. A gulf of lies and trickery. 

'You're a lie… everything that you are is lie…' 

'No, my china doll, I am what've always told you I am, just a little different…' 

'You're immortal…'

'Yes, an immortal vampire. Why does the concept seem so odd to you, petal? Were you not taught about vampires, werewolves, unicorns and centaurs at Hogwarts. You believe in giants and men who transform into wolves at full moon but you could not fathom the idea of my immortality….'

'You are not immortal… you're just Annabel…' She dropped her hands from my face and sighed. I could tell she was angry that I could not understand, irritated because I could not accept her as she really was. Annoyed at having to explain further. She walked from me and stopped in front of the dresser.

'Just Annabel?' she muttered at first. 'Just Annabel?' Her voice rose a couple of octaves and she repeated herself three more times. On the third, she sent the bottles of perfume crashing to the floor with one swipe of her arm that went out so fast I still doubt if I really saw it or not. 'What is Annabel? Who is this person?  Why can you believe that I am a woman with odd friends who lives in a big house that once reached out to a fourteen year old boy and made him her china doll but you can not believe that I am a vampire?'  

'Because,' I answered before I knew the answer myself. 'By being a rich woman who reached out to a fourteen year old boy you could pretend to normalcy. You could pretend you aren't a….'

'Monster?' 

'Yes,' 

'That I am. A monster. Monster Annabel. A monster that lives eternally and hunts humans for the metallic sweet taste of their blood.'

'Hunt?' 

'Yes, and when I'm not hunting humans, I drink blood from those cups that the servants are always giving me. Red wine, you thought it was, no? I haven't drank wine for- do you know why I told you to only drink from the white wine? Because the red wine is blood.' 

'Blood?'

'Oh, would you stop repeating every keyword in every sentence!' she snapped and walked towards me as she spoke. 

'You say normalcy. For centuries, I have lived and seen mortals striving for normalcy. What is this normalcy? Why is it worth so much to you? What is it to be normal and like everybody else? Is it just the fear of being different and earning yourself criticism or is it some mutant gene that has been embedded into your DNA that makes you want it? Would you rather me live in a small house, behind a white piked fence, go to church every Sunday and barbeque every other Thursday? Would you love me more then? Admire and envy me for my normalcy? For the way that I fit in so much I'm almost part of the background, that it's all grey and dead in my world because I'm so normal it's boring. Everything always the same and routine that I live my life with sealed eyes because I know what will come next? Will you envy me then?'  

'You lied to me, Annabel, and for that you will pay. You've tricked me all this time. I don't care if you were a siren luring me to your rocks, you should have told me!' 

'But I didn't! What will you do now? You love me too much to let go….'

'I do not love you, I love a lie, and now that I found out the truth, I can no longer strive for your affections when you're not the person that I thought you were. You are not the twenty four-year-old rich girl that I knew this morning-'

'And is a twenty four year old rich girl all you wanted? To a twenty four year old rich girl you would give your love when she is nothing but 'just another woman?' I lied to you when we first met and I told you I was twenty-two which makes me twenty-four today. I've been twenty-four for the last four hundred and seventy five years. Do not wish for normalcy, china doll-' 

'Stop that! Stop calling me that!' I grabbed her by the upper arms and shook her. 'What is that meant to mean anyway?!'

'That you're mine, I've made you and you're precious to me. That you'll always be mine, and I'll take care of you like delicate china.'

'And put me back in your wall unite when you're bored or it's time for you to fuck?' 

'Draco, my love life is not your concern nor do I have to ask you for permission-'

'How could you ask for permission? There's so many of them that you wouldn't have time to ask me about every single one!' 

'How dare you!' she yelled and was ready to put her hands on my chest to push me away if I hadn't slapped her across the face instead. There was a shocked moment, on her side anyway, for I knew exactly what I was doing and what I had to do. 

'If every other man could touch you and fuck you, then so can I Annabel!' with this final deceleration, I got a firm hold of the front of her dress and ripped the material open. 

Under it, she wore a corset, I spun her around and I heard her surprised intake of breath. With my skilled fingers, I unpicked the first knot and the whole things came falling away. Under that, she wore a sort of white material dress that a woman might wear under her clothes. Like a petticoat, I suppose, or a shift. She was beginning to struggle when I gripped her waist and pushed her face down onto the bed. I did so her torso was on the bed and waist down was hanging off. She was turning around but I put a hand on her back and forced her to stay in the way that I had put her. 

I dropped to my knees and lifted her skirts. She wore pantyhose that I pulled down with her panties. There, in front of me, was her bare buttocks and sex. I heard the faint noises that she was making and I felt my arousal strengthen. She sounded like a helpless woman begging for mercy. My mercy. Annabel was finally at my mercy. 

I laid my hands on the clear white skin of her buttocks – slowly, as if it would burn me – and massaged. The more I did it, the more determined I became – as if learning that I wouldn't be burned, I was spurred on. My hands become more desperate, more demanding. I massaged in wider circles, squeezed harder and pulled her cheeks apart more. She cried out and clenched the sheets. I could see how her vagina began to moisten. I couldn't suppress my need any longer, I needed to taste her. 

I licked my lips and then with that same tongue, I leaned in licked her once. She cried out as if she'd just cum. 

I did this for me. I knew how much females enjoyed oral sex, but I wasn't doing it to please Annabel, I was doing it because I wanted to taste her. For me. 

My tongue was in her slit, flicking, licking like a dog would lick milk from his bowl. Her hips were shaking and I could see her annas clenching and loosening, could feel as her opening contracted and gave way around my tongue. I brought my tongue to the front, as much as I can in her position, and reached her nub. As I flicked it, her hips made spasm movements to match me. 

She tasted of salt, of the blood that she drank and of the sex that she often had. She smelt of sex and this pushed me more to make her smell of my sex. 

I was so aroused that I was forced to stand up and drop my pants. I held my penis in my hand and rubbed it a few times, I wanted to be as aroused as I could be inside her. I wanted her to know that I was a man, not a fourteen-year-old child. Without mercy, I plunged into her with one clean stroke; I was too lustful to worry about hurting her. She cried out so loud that if I wasn't sure that it was from pleasure I would have believed I had hurt her. Her torso came up and she threw her head back, I pushed her face down again. 

The feel of her – that wet, warm, sleek and slightly ragged texture – sent a shudder through me and it made my back prickle.

In a sensual rhythm, I began rocking in and out of her. With each stroke, I felt myself closer to the inevitable explosion, but I kept it off until she came. She was moaning, whimpering, her muscles were shaking and I could see the way she rubbed her breasts against the matters. I couldn't see them yet, for she still wore that shift. When she came, I did so with her and we both cried out in ecstasy. Now that I look back on it, I'm sure that anyone on the same floor would have heard us. 

I fell to my knees and supported myself by holding her thighs. When we both finally regained ourselves, I stood up and what I had done crept in. Had I just raped her? 

The thought drove me crazy. She was now lying on her back and staring at me, her legs parted and her skirts falling between her legs in a seductive manner. 

'I'm sorry…' I whispered. 'I'm sorry Annabel…'  

'No…' She shook her head, 'Again.' 

I didn't need to be told twice. I hadn't had my fill of her yet. I straddled her and caught her lips in a hungry kiss. She kissed back and moaned. I kissed her jaw, her nose, her eyelids, her neck and shoulders frantically. I kissed the soft skin of the nook of her arms and finally I came to her breasts. 

I pulled down the shift that she wore and gasped. Her breasts were like bowls of upside down jelly topped with brown crowns. I was not one for sensual loving, I liked to be rough and I could tell she liked it rough too. I took the nipple of her left breasts in my mouth and sucked on it as a baby would to his mother's tit. 

When my mouth found her breast, I let out a hot groan of pleasure. Here she was as soft as summer breeze and as potent as whiskey. As she withered beneath me, I dampened and tugged on the taut nipple, losing myself in the taste and texture while her heartbeat hammered against my mouth. All the while, my hands rubbed her arms and shoulders tightly. 

After that, I removed all of her clothing, and pushed her up to the pillows. She lay in the middle, completely naked and sexy as I straddled her and kissed between the mounds of her breasts. Instead of entering her in a strictly Christian way, I turned her on her side and lay behind her. I slid into her slowly this time, I was in a position where my head was under her shoulders, my arms were around shaking and fondling her breasts and my top leg was in front of her hips.  We made sounds, oh, the sounds that we made. It was like music, like we sang together an age old song. We sounded beautiful, especially when it came to her part. 

I came first and then as I was easing, she came and arched her back towards me. I did not wait for her to calm down, but slid back out, turned her on her back, and threw her legs onto my shoulders so that her thighs were near my face and her feet were hitting the middle of my back. I could tell she was struggling to catch her breath and an ounce of self-control. I liked it this way; she was defenceless against my needs. 

My mouth was sucking, my tongue was licking, my lips were kissing. Annabel cried out and pushed her hips up to me. She would push up, I would lick her teasingly and then she'd pull away as if I'd burned her– burned her with pleasure, – I would then pull her back. She came and cried out so loud; I laughed into her sex and brought another cry from her. 

Unlike the second time, I entered into her with such ferocity that even with her lack of breath she managed to cry out and arch her back. 

I do not know where my energy had come from to take her three times in a row, but I was glad for it. Because even by the third time, the fire in me had not been dimmed. She was so aroused and wet I had to bite down on my lip with the effort not to slide out of her. She came first and the contraction of her muscles threw me into an ocean of pleasure when it was my turn. 

Another time, I took her in the usual way. I lay between her legs and pumped her with clemency. She shook with the effort of my pelvic thrusts and I kept my eyes on her breasts as they wobbled sweetly with rhythm.  

I was exhausted by this stage, and so was she. Her breathing was coming out like a swimmer who'd been under the water for way too long. There was a crease in her left brow and her mouth was in an unchaste O. We were both sweating like pigs and this drove me on further. I liked the smell of her sweat; it was that definite female scent; that definite female scent, the pheromone called to me like a bee to pollen. I could feel beads of liquid rolling down my back and I did not stop even as my hair - that was well below my shoulders - spiked me. Some of it was stuck to my forehead and some was in my eyes, I didn't not stop to push it away. My thighs were gliding along hers and I liked the feeling.

We came together and I fell on to her in exhaustion. I was exhausted but my erection threatening to remount. I was ignited every time I looked at her naked body or the expression of vulnerability that was on her face as her eyes nearly closed with fatigue. 

I had one more time in me. 

I sat up, gathering her into my lap. She had her arms crossed on her breasts and her head was lolling around uncontrollably. 

'Draco…' she moaned and the husky sound of her voice made my temperature rise. 'I can't anymore….' She almost sobbed when I hooked my hands under her buttocks and placed her on my erection. When I did so a racking orgasm went through her and she threw her head back as she whimpered and shuddered.

I would lift her, my muscles almost screaming in agony and then drop her with a loud smacking noise. She'd cry out every time with utter pleasure. It did not take long, as we were both aroused and tender tremendously. I knew she came at least three times and then one last time with me. 

Before I could even release her, when we both came that one last time, she fell back onto the sheets and her breast was rising and falling so rapidly that I thought her chest would burst. I managed to crawl to the pillows and collapse next to her. She was moaning on her own and whimpering like a wounded puppy. I knew that she was sore but that she was also in a seventh heaven and that the orgasm was still dying away. My eyes began to close and before I fell asleep, I had one last look at her previously elaborate hair do that was now ruined. She reminded me of a kitchen lass after a tumble in a hay stack. 

*

In the morning – not the morning really, for we woke up the night of the next day – I woke up when she rolled around and threw one of her legs across my back. I was still lying on my stomach as I had been when I'd fallen asleep. I turned my head and studied her face; her eyes were beginning to flutter opened. I didn't feel anxious for her reaction, I don't know why. 

When she woke up, she rolled on to her back and stretched. The sheets that she'd covered us with at night, slid down to her nipples. I thought of last night an almost feline smile broke on my face. 

'Hello,' she said… not really, she kind of rumbled. She'd lost her voice and I had to resist the urge to laugh. Suddenly very awake she sat bolt up right and put a hand to her throat. 

'My voice… I lost my voice….' It's quite amusing how people always sate the obvious. Like when I hexed Potter, he said 'you hexed me!' Or when a Muggle gets shot, they always find it extremely necessary to state the obvious: 'you shot me, you bastard!'  

She was still holding her throat and attempting to cough herself out of it. I finally gave in and buried my head into the pillow as I laughed my lungs out. The next thing I felt was a pillow pounding my head and then her weight on top of me as she pulled my hair and yelled at me. I rolled around and she was thrown off me, bounced on the bed once and then fell to the ground. She didn't give me time to get up before she was back and strangling me. I was laughing all the time at the mad grin across her face. I got a firm hold of her naked torso and spun her around, pinning her under me. 

She'd never been like this – Annabel was a lot of things, but never playful. I didn't mind this side to her, I'd seen many sides of her since arriving at this house and this was one of my favourites. 

She tried to say something but gave up when her voice came out in half a whisper. 

'Might as well from all the noises that you were making yesterday night.' I laughed and put my head between her breasts as my shoulders shook. She pulled my hair – hard – and bit my shoulder. 'Hey! No! Bad girl, bad! You no bites master! Bad girl!' she pouted and poked my chest. I laughed and took her lips in a furious kiss. I was happy, I could kiss her whenever I wanted now and it would be okay because she was mine. 

It occurred to me that perhaps Annabel was the sort of person who would never do anything if not made to do it. If I hadn't gone about it like I had yesterday, I would have woken up alone in my bed again. 

When I pulled away she held two hand fulls of my hair and tugged at it. She pointed to her throat and pouted again. Something occurred to me. 

'If you fed, would you heal?' I asked. Now, after I'd slept on it, it didn't matter to me what she really was. I loved her too much to stay angry with her and I loved her too much to push her out of my bed. She paused for a second and frowned and then nodded. 'Annabel… it doesn't bother me any more…' I entwined a lock of her hair around my fingers and felt the texture. I shrugged. 'I want to know one thing… how old are you?'

She lifted an eyebrow, held my hands and put them on her bare breasts. She started massaging with her hands and I felt my groin hardening again. Her nipples were poking my palms and I felt a tingle down my back. She let go and brought my face to hers. We kissed. We kissed more and more then that. She had an interesting way of kissing. I supposed because of all the years that she'd been doing it. I should have been jealous at that, angry perhaps, but I wasn't. She was mine and I would sooner kill myself then let another man touch her the way I was doing now. I was still massaging her breasts when she shifted under me and opened her legs allowing me room in between. 

Pushing myself in to her, she whimpered in my mouth. I was rocking back and forth, gently. As it got more intense, she wrapped her legs around my waist and urged me on faster and harder. I knew then how my Annabel preferred it. Rough, forced, dirty, hot, sweaty and fast! It didn't bother me. 

When we both came she pushed against my chest with her clammy breasts. We broke apart and she held my face in her hands, I felt like she wanted to tell me something but she couldn't and not because she'd lost her voice either. I kissed her nose and slid out of her. She let me go and rolled on her side, moaning as she stretched. I watched her for a while and then walked to the bathroom. 

*

The servants had come in to wash and dress me and upon finding Annabel still naked in my bed, one of them had smiled as if he'd won a bet. When I came out of the bathroom, Annabel had gone to her room to get dressed. I waited for another fifteen minutes – noting that my bed sheets were gone – until she came back. She was dressed in a light shade of pink – the usual sort of gown that she wore with the boots and jewellery – and her hair was left out to fly around her. 

She took my hand. It wasn't as maternal or as older sisterish as she used to make it before, this seemed to be saying 'we did the naughty last night and I want to do it again!' We walked down to the library where, oddly enough, most the house occupants sat. 

The first thing I noticed was that Marcus was sitting on a chair in front of a study table and Emma was sitting on his lap. They were kissing and Emma had her hands tangled in his hair. It was odd, I suppose, to see Marcus like that – in love. He hadn't struck me as a man who would keep company with a woman that he loved, I'd always thought that he was just the boss, he researched, held balls and read. I reason now that he'd had this part of him hidden, that he had been waiting for Emma to be ready for him. 

The second thing I realised was that when we came in, everybody paused and then giving different grins of 'I know what you did last night. Naughty, naughty!' or 'Ha! I knew you would do it!'

Annabel seemed oblivious to them as she walked to Marcus and kissed his cheek good morning.  I waited near the door, not knowing what to do. I busied myself with looking around the room. When Edith caught my eyes, she giggled and Benjamin – who had been running his hand through her hair and whispering in her ear – gave me a thumbs up. 

Tobias and Egi came to me and gave me honorary slaps on the back and shakes of hand. They were both giddy and their eyes were mocking in a friendly manner. Mussa who was seriously discussing with Chu-Ya, lifted an eyebrow and nodded, his companion said nothing – just smiled. Elva who sat at a table with Ailionora grinned at me and the latter blew me an air kiss. Shawn smiled – I think he smiled. Sebastian who was talking to the former, gave me a mocking bow of his head. Roxanna smirked. 

Did everybody know? How did they all know? As much as I knew at the time, the last thing that they'd seen was me dragging Annabel out of the ballroom. How did they think that led to sex?

In five minutes, everybody had gone back to their previous tasks and I was conversing with Tobias and Egi. I found out that our voices – just like I'd guessed – were heard from most of the rooms in the castle. Egi told me that the walls were made of some material that didn't block out noise in the least. 

'My dear Annabel, I remember that last time that you lost your voice. 1736 was it?' Marcus was laughing with Emma and Annabel was blushing. I'd never seen her blush before and, with the curse of red heads, she looked rather endearing. 

A little while after, something happened that took the attention completely off us – for which I was grateful. Ailionora, the one that always watched Mussa, walked over to him and tapped him on the back. He looked down at her with curiosity and she asked him to step with her aside. I wasn't trying to listen, but their voices drifted over to me. 

'Isn't it nice that Marcus and Emma finally got together? I mean, how long has it been? Over four hundred years?' Ailionora was saying. 

'Yes, I believe we had all seen it sometime coming. It's good for both of them.' Mussa agreed and gave Ailionora a polite smile. 

'And Annabel with Draco. I knew it from the moment that she brought him into this house that something like this would happen…'

Had my feelings been that obvious?

'Something needed to hold Annabel down I suppose.' 

'Benjamin and Edith make a nice couple….'

'Mmmm,'  

'I've had my eye on someone for over fifty years now you know.' She prodded and Mussa raised his eyebrows. 

'Have you?' He sounded a little amused and knowing. 

'Yes, in fact, he's standing very close by… do you think he knows?' She smiled in a sultry manner and bumped her shoulder to his.  I remember thinking that if Mussa didn't pick up on that… urgh! 

'Chu-Ya is a very agreeable man, Ailionora, I'm sure he'd make a very good husband for you…' 

I'd never seen anyone's expression or manner change as fast as Ailionora's did then. Her body stiffened, her face paled and she took a step back. The couple failed to notice how every ear in the room seemed to be straining to hear them. 

'Chu-Ya…' she repeated, her voice a whisper and her eyes softening in pain. 

'Yes, I think he'll be very good for you.' Mussa nodded. 

'Chu-Ya?' her voice hardened and she snapped her head up to look him in the eye. 'Chu-Ya!' blotches of red appeared on her porcelain skin and her fists clenched. 'Chu-Ya!' she was yelling now and Mussa looked truly ignorant to her source of anger.  

'I'm sorry, is it Egi? I don't really think he's your type-'

'Egi!' she screeched and advanced on him. 

'Did I say something to offend you?' 

'You stupid man!' she hissed. 'You stupid stupid man!' Mussa took a step back and his eyes narrowed as if he was sizing her up and considering how much damage she could to him.  'You're so stupid!' She hit his chest with her fists and let out oaths and curses in a language that I thought was German. 

'What did I do?!' Mussa was protecting himself with raised hands. 

'What did you do? What did you do? Nothing!' She stepped back, her face crimson and her body shaking in anger. 

'I'm sorry?' 

'Urgh!' She screeched – have you ever heard a vampire screech? It's terrible! – again and left the room. 'Fifty years waisted. Fifty years!' Her voice could be heard from down the hall. 

There was long pause and then Marcus spoke. 

'You're a very wise man, my friend, but I believe the ways of the heart are beyond you.' He hugged Emma to him as he spoke and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her head on his chest. 

* 

The next few weeks weren't routine. No balls were held as Marcus seemed too busy with Emma. I and Annabel were too busy to attend if any _were _ held.

From all the time spent with her, I learnt that the falling in love wasn't something that she understood. Human emotions weren't things that she understood. Normally, if a female started to cry, those around her would struggle to comfort her. Annabel would probably leave to catch up on some work that she'd missed. Not because she meant to insult or come off as insensitive but because she'd been detached so long ago from what it was to feel that she no longer remembered how it felt to want comfort or sweet words. 

When I reacted in some way – laughed, snapped, smirked – she'd get that expression on her face that meant she didn't know what to do. Or she'd smile in a contemplative manner like a child seeing a dog run for the first time. I learnt soon enough not to be offended by her lack of interest in some things or her composed responses to situations where an average woman would be jumping up and down.  

As to the private time that we spent together, she reacted in just the right way. When we spent time in my bed, bath, on the tiled floor of the bathroom, carpeted floor in my bedroom, the swimming pool downstairs, on the leather coach in the library, in her bedroom, her bed, her shower or even her veranda that looked out on a courtyard shielded from the sun, she would react very ecstatically. She wasn't a silent lover or a boring one. Her years of experience in love making outmatched mine by leagues. She taught me how to pleasure her and taught me new ways of making love. With her, I was constantly surprised and happy, like a student learning what he loved to learn best. 

Her age didn't bother me. Even if I couldn't ignore that she was over four hundred years my senior and pretend she was but twenty-four years of age, it wouldn't have bothered me. She never made me feel like it mattered, that I was less then she wanted because she was much more experienced in every field than I was. When we made love, we weren't anything but a male and a female sharing their bodies and pleasuring each other.

To me, it wasn't just about the physical pleasure or the joy of seeing her shaking under me or the feel of her taut nipples grazing my chest. Not that all these things didn't install in me a sort of delight, but just having her with me was a whole different feeling. I loved her. Till now, I still can't explain the feeling of being inside her or hearing her scream my name as I pleasure her, or that crease in her brow – a fraction between pleasure and pain – when I fill her. It truly did make me weak with emotion. With need. Not because the knowledge that I was brining such things to a woman more then twenty-eight times my age and experience but because I brought such things to a woman that I loved more then myself. 

Once or twice over the long weeks did I think of Hogwarts and what I'd left behind. Had they stopped searching for me? By no doubt they had. Was my mother frantic with worry? Was my father having a hard time deciding who'd be the next Malfoy heir? Were they missing me? At school, was my name still included in the schedules and was I still counted in the classes? I figured that now and again, in common rooms and hallways, people still asked where Draco Malfoy had gone. 

The trio probably came up with their own theory about it and they'd probably associated it with Voldemort. When I looked back on it then my enmity with them made me feel embarrassed at my behaviour. To an outsider it probably did seem stupid and immature. I found that I no longer cared about Harry's fame, Hermione's brains or Ronald's large family. I wasn't jealous or envious. All my fights and arguments with them seemed so very long ago that they were but a hazy memory. I'd forgotten what it was to hate them and I didn't care to try to recover the feeling. All that time before the end of my sixth year, felt like it was a whole other lifetime belonging to someone else. 

It wasn't until early October that something happened to change the happiness that I was living. 

A compony of Russian Vampires came to the House of Time begging for help. In their own convent – nova, translated from Russian – there was a blood feud for the crown. I learnt then, two things. The first being that the House of Time was the first house of pure vampires, and the second that, in a house of vampires, the males fought for the crown. Just like in a herd of wolves or deer, the males fought for the upper most position. The control of the females.

The old leader had exposed himself to the sun in a fit of anger with them all. Now they all fought for his position. During their fight, the lives of the two females in the family had been cut short because the eight males had fought furiously over them. 

All in all, Marcus was telling us in private, The Nova, was doomed to extinction, which, he added, was what happened to a number of Vampire convents that boarded corruption and greed. And when the leader died without leaving a successor. 

The two messengers that came from that convent begged Marcus to choose, from them, a leader to return their lives back to normal. They asked Marcus to come to Russia and sort things out. 

When they had been given rooms for the night, the family had gotten together for council. Then, I realised how different Marcus was in his ways from other Vampires. Even though he was not human, and probably hadn't been for over a seven hundred years, he maintained the human qualities for kindness and impartiality. 

There was danger for Marcus in travelling to another family. The members of that family could retaliate against his rule and have him killed. They could imprison him forever in a coffin where he wouldn't be dead but in a dream state where he heard the noises around him but was not able to distinguish them. Or they could even envy him his position in the House of Time and kill him out of jealousy. 

After long debates and discussions they decided that Marcus would go but he would need to take another person with him. 

Chu-Ya and Mussa were out of the question as they, in a joint rule, took the place of Marcus when he wasn't able. If either of them left, the house would be vulnerable to outside attacks. Marcus would not take Emma for reasons they would not share with the others. Edith wouldn't leave Benjamin, and the latter wasn't welcome in The Nova because of a past disagreement with one of the members.  

Tobias and Egi didn't have enough influence with any other house, because they simply had not wanted to work up any, so their accompanying Marcus would be pointless. Ailionora was afraid of going there because of the house's reputation for ravaging women and now that their two females had been killed, they were in dire need.  Plus, she and Mussa had finally gotten together and she didn't wish to leave him. Sebastian was the treasurer for the house so he needed to remain. Shawn's antisocial nature made him utterly useless to anyone who didn't know him quite well.

This left I, Annabel and Elva. 

I wasn't considered a good choice since I was a mortal and easy pray for the Vampires there. Elva was due for a trip to Greenland. When she was still a mortal, she'd fallen in love with a man and conceived three children. Two boys and a girl. The father had been from Greenland so when Elva had turned Vampire the father had feared her and taken his children away. Five centuries later, she still watched over that line. 

This only left Annabel. 

There was silence. Marcus was standing, waiting for her answer and all members around the oval table, waited too.   

'We might be gone for over two years…' Marcus added. 

'I'll come with you,' Annabel said, 'I'll come with you.'

And these words were my undoing. I couldn't wait to years for her return, I couldn't know that she would be in danger and wait for her to maybe come back or not, for _two_ years. 

'Annabel… you can't go,' I said from next to her. 

'Hush, Draco.'

'Annabel!' I hit the smooth top of the mahogany table with my palm and she jumped in surprise. 'You won't go!' 

'Do not tell me what I will and will not do,' she said in a steady and lethal voice. If I had paid attention I would have noticed that everybody on the table found everything, but us, extremely intriguing in that manner of awkwardness. 'You have no right.'

'I have every right!' 

'Excuse us,' she said to the table and rose. I followed her and we shut the door to a side room behind us.

'Annabel, you can't go for two years-'

'Get this, Draco, you have no right – no power – to stop me from going. I will do as I choose.'

'It's not about forcing you to do anything or using my power over you, it's about wanting you here. What will I do for two years?' 

'I can't remain next to you forever, Draco, I have to do things, there are times when I have duties that I must take care of. I can't stay next to you and babysit you forever. You won't die if I go-'

'Babysit me? Babysit me! What in the world gave you the impression that you ever had to babysit me?'

'Oh, quiet, you know what I mean.' She busied herself with picking up and replacing objects from the shelves around the small storage room. 

'No, I don't, tell me.'

She sighed. 'You seem to have this idea that I belong to you. That we are a, some sort of, item. Who ever told you that?'

'Well, I assumed, since we have been spending every waking moment in each other's company, I assumed that we were something.'

'Don't just assume. You can't go through life assuming. I don't know where you get that. I certainly never taught you to assume.' 

'We-'

'Just had sex. That's it. If I'd known that you would get so possessive about it, I wouldn't have let you from the first place.'

'Listen to yourself! Are you even thinking before opening your mouth? Just because we never wrote it down on paper, doesn't mean-'

'I'm not your girlfriend?' 

'I wasn't going to say that.'

'I've never been anybody's girlfriend before and I'm certainly not yours. I'm not anybody's anything, Draco.'

'Hold on, why is this about you? Why are you acting like the tortured victim?  I'm the one who's going to be alone for two years and you couldn't even bring yourself to care the slightest about what I want from you. Did it occur to you that I might miss you, or might want to bloody fuck you? If you'll even come back and find me? Or were you so wrapped up in yourself, what I'm supposedly telling you to do, that you forgot about me? You know Annabel, just because you aren't human and don't have emotions like we do, doesn't mean you could be selfish and expect me to put it yo your lack of-'    

'Oh, shut up Draco, you sound like a school girl on her first crush.' 

And this way we fought for hours. We insulted each other, yelled, tried to calm down, yelled some more, cursed, Annabel threw things at me, I pointed out why she should stay, she asked me to grow up, I told her she was selfish and self-involved, she said that I would still have been a stupid little boy if she hadn't taken time out of her day to spend it with me, we yelled, she slapped me, I pushed her, yelled, cursed, discussed and cursed some more.   

By the end of it, we were both at our wits' end. She was sitting on the dusty ground of the storage room and I was leaning on a line of shelves. The room had become unbearably hot and our excitement did nothing to stop it. At this stage, we were just throwing insults at each other, both too proud to let down first. 

'You know Draco, the more you insult me and the more we fight, the more I'm determined to go,' 

'Why do you really want to go?'

'I have a friend in The Nova and I want to see him.' 

'A friend?'

'Yes , one attached to another by affection or esteem, you have friends don't you, petal? I mean, you had friends. If you could call them friends, the shits that you had.'

'Oh, that's real good, you're real smart with that one Annabel. Real mature of you.'

'Thank you.'

'Bitch.' 

'Arsehole.'

'Whore.'

'Mortal.'

'Monster.' 

'I'm not a monster, you whoreson of a bitch!'  

'Shut up! Just shut up, Annabel.' 

I sank to the floor and held my head in my hand in the dark dusty room. There was a rustling of clothes and then I felt Annabel's hand on my shoulder. I looked up and she cocked her head to one side. 

'You have nothing of the boy, the sixteen year old boy that came here last year.' She ran her hands through the hair that was to under my shoulder blades and, with her thumb, she smoothed my eyebrow. 'You've grown so much. You're a man now.' 

'And even that, won't keep you with me…' 

'My job is done china doll. You're all grown up. I can't do anything any more. It's time to move on…'

'No it isn't. Your job isn't done. How could it be done when I can't be without you? What will happen if you don't come back? If you die over there or find someone else. If that friend of yours tickles your fancy? Eh?' 

'You'll find a nice mortal girl and spend the rest of your life with her…'

'You say it so easily.'

'Because you make it so hard,' she sobbed the last word, and I caught the wrist of the hand that sat on my shoulder. I pulled her into my lap and she came without protest. I suddenly ached for her and something about the forbidden darkness in the room made me harden to undress her in it. But I didn't undress her, she didn't let me. 

Annabel settled in my lap where I had my legs crossed and back straight against the shelves. She put a hand between us and slid it down my chest, to my abdomen and then my belt. With both of her hands, she took hold of my grey shirt and pulled it out of my pants. She took off my coat and pulled the shirt over my head. I only watched her as she took what she wanted from me. 

One hand was pinching my left nipple and with the other, she raked her nails on my chest and down to my abdomen. I felt her fingers on my lips and I licked them, tasting my own blood from under her nails. My skin stung when she licked it with her little pink tongue. I couldn't see her clearly in the dark but I knew her Vampire eyes could see every inch of my skin. The need to rely on my hearing and smelling more, enticed me further. 

She used her fangs on my skin, making little scratches and licking them. They hurt, they stung but they also pleasured and awakened desires in me that I hadn't known existed. I pushed myself against the shelves as I wanted her to hurt me and at the same time wanted her to stop. The edge of the shelf dug into my back and a whole different sort of twisted thrill shook me. I was so aroused, I don't even think the first time I had sex with her, I'd been this aroused. 

The material of my pants was threatening to make me cum. Sensing this, she undone my belt, unzipped my pants and pulled the garment over my waist and left it at me knees with my underwear. She slipped off me and instead sat between my knees. I thought she'd take me in her mouth but she didn't, she did something even better. She put her ten fingers at my waist and dragged them down my thighs. I could feel my skin ripping and gathering under her nails. I could feel as the sharps edges of her claws racked the freshly exposed skin. I cried out when she took one nail and went over one of the newly opened wounds on my thigh. There was a kick in that, a dark sort of arousal that burned through my loins. She put her mouth to the wounds and licked, sucked and pressed with her tongue. She bit too and this had me jumping. 

I was beginning to ache with arousal when she wrapped her fingers around my cock and began to pump me. It was a release even as the pleasure built up. She had her mouth on the head while her hand went in a tight rhythm of up and down, back and forth. When I was near discharge she took her mouth away and kept her hand moving. I was oblivious to the sounds that I was making, or how I'd had my hand on her head urging her own. 

When I finally came, I groaned loudly and arched my waist in the final gesture of release. I felt my seed stinging my thigh, my right thigh, as she held my penis to it and let me cum. It burned and stung, it hurt and I liked it. She was smearing my seaman with my blood into my wounds. She put her mouth to it and began sucking furiously. I felt as if my flesh would rip into her throat. She blew on it. God, she blew on it. My thigh shook uncontrollably and she increased her pressure on it. 

At last I knew why she did it when I came again and my balls ached in some sweet pain. 

I realised then, that I was naked and she was dressed. I didn't not see it but felt it when I ran my hands on her breasts and thighs to feel the material. She pushed my hands away impatiently and I knew she was pulling down her pantyhose and moving aside G that I knew she wore. She held my shoulders with her hands and I could feel her breath on my neck. The next thing I felt was a sting. Like a pin, except one that was thick and hot. Two of those pins were driven into my neck. They were her fangs. She was feeding on me. I tried to struggle but I was weakening. The clutches that she had on my shoulders had nails. Her nails pierced me as she drank. I knew what she was doing. She wasn't trying to suck me dry but enough to weaken me. 

It was more than her just feeding. She was showing me something she'd never permitted me before. She'd never let me see her take down a prey, never let me see the monstrous side of her. But now she was, never mind that I was the pry. And it occurred to me then why she'd sought me out after the Qudditch match when I was fourteen. It was for this moment. She was doing what she came for before she left. 

She pulled her fangs away and the air around us stung the two clean wounds on my neck. But I didn't have the pleasure of harbouring that pain for the moment because she rose, held my penis straight and came down until all of me was inside her. We cried out together. She rose and fell. Rose and fell. I gripped her hips and didn't manage to cut her, like she had cut me, through the material. The edge of the shelf was cutting at my skin and my sweat was making my wounds throb. I wanted to cum, but I didn't. It took at least eight minutes for her to properly orgasm and with that, I came with her.

Her nails made new wounds in my shoulders when she arched her back and bared her fangs with the unearthly shriek of a Vampire.  

When we were both calm again, she kissed me. I could taste my blood on her tongue and licked it off her teeth. I pushed her gently back. 

'Will you still go?'

'Why do you keep thinking that when we have sex I make you some sort of silent promise to forever be with you? Just because we had sex doesn't mean I'm giving you my loyalty….'

My anger spurred up like it had never before. Suddenly, I put my hands on her torso, got a firm hold and threw her off me at the opposite shelf. The loss of her heat on me made me wince. 

She hit the shelf, and fell to the ground. Many glass jars, cutlery, boxes and old books landed on her. When the last spoon fell I got up. She was pulling a knife out of her arm when I picked up my pants and slipped into it. Grimacing when the material grinded against my bleeding thighs.  

'Leave, I'm leaving too.' I put on my shirt, didn't bother with buttoning it and threw my coat on top of it. 

'Where will you go? Nobody would want you. You can't go back to school, your parents probably don't want you either, I'm sure Lucius has done something about finding a new heir and I'm sure he froze your bank account. You don't even have anywhere to stay. You'll starve on the streets like a rat. You'll be a beggar!' 

'I have my ways.  I don't need your charity to live, Annabel. Now I realise what a fool I've been. You've been working all these years to turn me into some slave that you feed on when it suits you. Or to make me one of you. A vampire. A monster. I'd rather go back and ask my father for a place to stay then remain here and be surrounded by filth.'  

'You're the filth, you Malfoy slob!' She picked up one of the forks that had fallen on her and threw it at me. I hadn't seen it in the dark, only heard its zing and then it pierced my chest. I pulled it out with difficulty, gritting my teeth against the pain. 'You think you could strive for my affections? You think I'll spend a true ounce life with you, a mere-' and when she said the last word, it stung me like an arrow smeared with poison. '-_mortal_.' 

I took two strides forward to where she lay on the ground, grabbed her arm, hoisted her to her feet and brought her crashing back to the ground with a back handed slap across the face. She cried out and this pleased me. 

I threw the fork at her and with another curse, I left the storeroom. I could hear her lunatic laughter echoing in the small space 

They were all still sitting in the room around the table when I came out. I saw the shock in some of their eyes at my appearance. By no doubt, I looked messy, bloodied, sweating and furious. I ignored them and ignored those that called after me as I headed to the main door of the castle. 

I threw the door open and the sun blinded me for a second. I walked out into the sun and it prickled my skin. I hadn't seen the sun for weeks. 

By opening the door and stepping out into the sun – where Annabel can't go – I knew I had created a gulf betweens us, if it hadn't already been created in that storeroom. 


End file.
